Carbon Equipoise

Problem Statement

Carbon credit calculation today depends on manual data gathering and disclosure. The vetting process and trading within organizations are also manual with a lack of transparency making it non-trustworthy. So can we come up with a transparent system that can automatically calculate the carbon credits, thus maintaining the Paris Climate Agreement Goal of offsetting carbon? 

Global Need

Economic growth is the topmost priority for the countries going forward.
However to achieve economic growth we should consider the usage of natural
resources and also should keep an eye on human actions such as combustion,
transportation, and waste generation.
In order to effectively limit emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) there should be proper and transparent management of carbon credits. 

Existing System(Issuers of carbon credit)

There are still many standards that are used to issue carbon credits to the green organization but the processes they follow are not trustworthy and we often heard about the corruption in carbon market, all can be eliminated if we make this whole process automated and eliminate it from human interventions. 

Existing System(emitters)

There are also many companies that claims netZero organizations but the core of all this is also data that they collect or submit (not trustworthy) this also results in many consequences an in many cases instead of making things better make it even worse. Some common terms we generally heard are like Green Washing, Double counting and many more. To handle this also we must automate all the possible scopes of emissions and handle these data transparently and make it a reliable system.

Drawbacks seen in Existing System

UN challenges as mentioned in their site

• Double-counting of GHG emission reductions, human rights abuses, and greenwashing (in which companies falsely market their green credentials, for example, misrepresentations of climate-neutral products or services).
• There must be transparency in the institutional and financial infrastructure for carbon market transactions.
•  And there must be adequate social and environmental safeguards to mitigate against any adverse project impacts – and to promote positive ones. 

Quote by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres 

 “put the pedal to the metal” in addressing the climate crisis. 

If held to high standards of integrity and transparency, carbon markets can help accelerate the transformation needed, by effectively putting a price on pollution and creating an economic incentive for reducing emissions. They can also help generate some of the vast sums needed to build resilience.

Therefore, Handling carbon credit ecosystem in a transparent and reliable way by eliminating human interventions will help to create a trustworthy environment for tracking carbon footprint and incentivize sustainable development projects by allocating required resources. 

In our solution we are proposing a single ecosystem to handle all the entities participates in carbon market processes(emitters, auditors and issuers) in transparent and automated way.

Here the core technology used are Blockchain integration with Internet of Things(IoT). For interface and server side application we are using MERN stack and state management using redux.

We are making separate interfaces for emitter, auditors and producer according to their use cases

Emitters

These are the entities that emits GHGs and want to offset their emissions.

Working:

• After successful register by organization separate contract is drafted for that organization.
• In the dashboard organization can see details like manager, contract address as well as wallet details like allotted, used and available credits.
• IoT devices are placed at emission points within the organization, these IoT devices collect GHGs quantity using sensors , convert it into transaction blocks and submit to mainchain.
• To get emission data of other scopes they need to enter the action and quantity and based on that equivalent credit is calculated automatically.
• After this all the submitted transactions are listed in approval tab of organization where organization need to sign transactions using their private key.
• At last all approved transactions are listed in transaction tab and respective wallet details gets updated.
• To offset the emissions we are providing two options to organizations trading(between two emitters) and funding(between emitter and producer). Every trade and fund actions generates a certificate that contains details of the transaction with private key signature by both organizations.

Handling Scalability Issues of Blockchain Of Things

As IoT devices gather a huge amount of data and submitting all the data to mainchain is not feasible and effects scalability of our whole application. So, to handle that we are proposing a method:

• Instead of sending all transaction blocks to mainchain we are sending it to offchain.
• But storing data offchain effects security and validity of data, To handle that we are writing a separate contract that will validate the transactions using block structure.
• Storing data offchain also may cause data unavailability problem(server crash) to deal with that we are sending aggregate transactions(one transactions in place of all transactions in that interval) periodically to the mainchain containing summary of that interval. This will enhance throughput of the whole process.

Calculating carbon credits with GHGs quantity

To calculate equivalent credit with GHGs quantity we are using Global Warming Potential(GWP) of the GHGs to first convert it into Co2e and later to carbon credits term.

Auditors

These are the entities that keep an eye on all the actions and verify the working of processes.

In this applications auditors can track and monitor actions of organizations using their unique contract address.

Producer

These are the green organizations that generates carbon credits by their renewable practices.

We are automating the process of issuing carbon credits using IoT devices and comparing formula where we measure the emission of green organization and compare with equivalent emission in general practices and based on difference(reduction) allots credit to organizations.

Our solutions aims to assist every entity participates in carbon credit ecosystem.

Underserved points:

• Currently organizations face issues to track their GHGs emissions and carbon credit usage. 
• Organizations needs high quality carbon credits to offset their emissions.
• Organizations need to trade or fund other organization via third party registries. Green organizations also receive funds via third party registries no direct interaction between emitters and producers(because lack of transparency).
• Single ecosystem for all the entities is not available.

Our Solution ways to handle the needs:

• Our solution can help industries in carbon credit management by automating tracking of their emissions with IoT devices and submitting to blockchain thus remove overhead of maintaining their own ledger while gathering transparent and reliable data.
• This solution also allows people who have excess credit to trade with people who have more emissions than the assigned credit thus we are serving to needs of people who want to offset their emission as well as the green organizations to get funding in exchange for carbon credit generation.
• This solution allows government and vetting agency to keep track of emission data of all organization and verify it from time to time as per need.
• This solution will generate high quality emission data and carbon credit usage which is difficult to find with current systems. This data can be used for research purposes, it also allows us to make protocols and policies for industry to help reduce their carbon footprint and be eco friendly.
• Our solution proposes one ecosystem for all the entities, This will gives a better visualization of credits from generation to consumption thus making the process transparent, reliable and easy to track. 

We first learnt about the term carbon credit in year 2021, since then we have worked towards system to help manage it.

In the past years we have pitched our idea at various college level and national level competitions which were also in collaboration with the target industries. Participating in these events allowed us to think about everything from the perspective of involved industries and the guidance from judges and mentors helped us in enhancing our proposal to better suit the industry.
These interaction helped us to know about various scopes in which carbon credit calculation is divided into.

The key point which we learnt through these years of studying and understanding how carbon credit ecosystem came to be and how it functions currently is that, "There is no fixed standard or technology to automate the process of carbon credit management as of today, There is no reliable system which can be trusted with process of allotting carbon credit as all the work is manual and not so transparent which shows up as fraudulent practices like greenwashing or double counting."

we are consistently exploring various tools and methods which are currently employed in carbon credit ecosystem to understand it in better way by reading up on protocols like kyoto protocol and paris agreement, sustainable development goals etc. 

We are also connected with people who are directly involved in industry and take inputs from them on how to make our solution better for the industry such as senior director from ESG(Enviromental, Social and governance).

We regularly post short videos and blogs on topics related to carbon credit ecosystem to spread awareness and make people understand the impact of GHGs emissions and need to reduce it.

Earlier this year we proposed our solution to National payment corporation of India there we passed the proof-of-concept stage and also demonstrate our prototype and won the first prize as well as get initial grant to further enhance our prototype. 

Our solution is currently in prototype phase.

We are applying to solve in order to present and promote our solution on global level.

We believe that by participating in solve we can connect with like minded impactful leaders across the industries and by working and learning together with our peers we can gain a trusted support group which will inspire us and guide us.

The leadership coaching and strategic advice from experts in the Solve and MIT network can help our solution be more market friendly.

The monitoring and evaluation support from Solve will help us enhance our solution to suit the industry and market more.

The access to relevant in-kind resources such software licenses and legal services from solve supporters will make our journey easier.

We aim to contribute to make our planet green again by helping in controlling and management of carbon emission, solve can be the platform to help our solution be visible globally and hence impact the larger part of the sphere.

Innovativeness of Solution:

• The measure challenge faced today by carbon market is lack of transparency and trust of ecosystem due to various bad practices. This system handles and maintain trust by automating the processes and eliminating human interventions from every stage(emitters, auditors and producers).
• Today all the entities acts independently that make the visualization and tracking of process difficult to monitor this solution bring all entities in one application thus provide better visualization and relationships between entities.
• Involvement of third party registries and news of their corruption effects the reliability of this system, This system will eliminate human involvement of third party registries, They can monitor the reliable data comes directly to the consortium instead of gathering on their own.
• Direct funding and trading channel between entities makes the process less complex which is nowadays happen via third party registries.
• This system will eliminate on site monitoring needs by auditors, They can easily monitor using Unique contract address of organizations.

Theory of Change:
The Problem:
Lack of Transparent system to manage carbon credits which involves

• Tracking of emissions
• Auditing carbon emissions and credit generation
• Carbon Credit Trading and funding green organization

How Our Solution impacts the problem:

In our solution we are proposing to use IOT devices with GHGs sensor to monitor emissions of organizations and storing the information on blockchain
which makes tracking of carbon credit uses transparent and secure by removing human involvement which may cause tampering and falsify emission data.

We are also acting as platform for trade of carbon credit between organization which have more emission requirement than the alloted carbon credit and those who have excess credit and would like to trade.
The trading process also allows funding of green organization by those organization who want to offset their excess emission. This will incentivize growth of more green organization.

Since all the data is being stored on blockchain in transparent manner it allows government and vetting to monitor carbon emission closely and accurately in Realtime, which makes our solution useful to not only the industries involved but also the government and policymakers.

Our proposal will also assist eco-friendly enthusiast scientist and innovators to create new solution to reduce emission based on the high quality emission data present on our blockchain which gives overview of which industry is generating more emission and needs to work on it and which industry is reducing emission and thus learn and adopt their best practices.

We also aim to create an auditing framework which will determine which organization has how much carbon credit requirement, also how much credit is being generated by green organization which will ultimately help us be more trustworthy for entities involved in carbon ecosystem.

Blockchain Integration with Internet of Things(BIoT)

NoSQL databases as off chain data store

MERN stack

Key Customers and Beneficiaries:

• Our key customers will be responsible organizations who aims to reach net zero target in near future as this product provides a solution to attain that.
• Government is also one our key customers as they can monitor, track and verify actions of organizations and make better policies.
• Green organizations who requires financial support for the development of renewable and sustainable practices.
• Researchers and scientists can use the reliable data generated that acts as fuel for many sustainable development.

Value to the population:

• Climate change has raised an alarm for world to ponder about and if not stopped can cause serious repercussions. Many development is going on how to reduce carbon emissions but management of the existing and new systems that track the uses and support new innovations  also holds a great impact in reduction of GHGs emission and this product offers a way to do that.
• In terms of revenue this product generates revenue by eliminating third parties and make a transparent and reliable channel for funding and trading of credits between emitters and producers.
• Green organization and innovators who are in developing phase of sustainable practices get the required funds for development in return of their contribution by responsible organizations who want to offset their emissions.
• Data generated by this application is quality and reliable data that hold values and can be used to  monitor the emissions by individual organizations as well as gives a better picture of sectors that emits more and work around that.

Products and services we offer:

• Automatic management and monitor system for GHGs accounting.
• Services to trade and fund other organizations directly through a reliable and secure channel to offset emissions.
• For green organization automatic track and issue of carbon credits system to automate the issuance of carbon credits based on their project impact.
• For auditors and verifiers , we provide interface to track and monitor actions of organizations easily and real time with the help of unique contract address.

Why use our product:

• This system will eliminate overhead from emitters to track and monitor emission manually by maintaining their own ledger.
• Emitters can offset their emission directly by connecting to other entity instead of connecting with third party registries(nowadays).
• Green organization can update their works in this system and the result and impact of their project made, all data is available transparently that can be used to fund these organizations and support their development.
• Issuance of credits is  automated and funding from emitters is also direct thus removing participation of third party registries as well as maintaining trust in the ecosystem.
• Auditors and verifiers instead of monitor each organization individually on site can monitor real time just by using contract address of organizations.