Carbon credit markets have received unflattering scrutiny over recent years. They’re criticized as being opaque and fractured, allowing well (or ill) intentioned companies to greenwash through the purchase of ineffective or meaningless carbon offset credits. Demand nevertheless continues to rise, and Flowcarbon is one of the startups looking to help straighten out the offset market so it can operate with more credibility.
Flowcarbon’s approach is to offer eco-oriented projects the ability to tokenize their carbon credits and sell them forwards, thereby accessing funding faster, and with just a 2% tokenization fee (as opposed to the more typical 30%). For purchasers, credits stored on the blockchain offer true observability and transparency.
For this, Flowcarbon has attracted significant interest from backers including Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Samsung Next and General Catalyst - in spite of the chequered history of Flowcarbon founder Adam Neumann. Detractors, however, point out that the blockchain solves for transparency, but leaves the issue of traded (instead of retired) tokens unresolved. Whilst it may not go far enough, however, Flowcarbon’s solution theoretically provides, at minimum, a partial solution - and that’s certainly an improvement on the current murky market.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle