Japanese Financial giant Softbank will work together with several energy and technology companies in the country to cut CO2 emissions. The bank released a statement on Monday confirming that it will be part of the project that is expected to kick off in June this year. Carbon Emissions using Blockchain Technology will help decentralize CO2 Trading and can bring much needed transparency.
The Project approved by Japan’s Ministry of Environment will involve trading customers in the rural areas to “trade the reduction value of CO2 (carbon dioxide) by renewable energy with other customers,” over a blockchain platform.
While the idea of trading emissions value is not an entirely new concept, the complexity involved in calculating and trading the value of green energy consumptions limited the trading to large corporations but blockchain technology can now make it possible for small homes to trade these energy gains from generating green energy.
The idea of buying and selling energy emission points was from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 1992 in Rio. The concept allows polluters to buy licenses from consumers who use green energy and as such don’t reach their pollution threshold thereby maintaining the emission cap for the region.
According to the statement, Softbank’s role will be to authenticate critical energy trading information like “who, what, when, where, how much [energy].” Softbank’s partners in the pilot include energy trading firm Power Sharing, who will supervise the project and provide major blockchain and technological support; and cloud services provider, PS Solutions Co., Ltd. Other partners listed are; LIXIL TEPCO CO., LTD. Smart Partners, TEPCO i-Frontiers Co., Ltd., Local Energy Corporation, Tsuyoshi Natsono Co., Ltd. Office, Cyber Soken Co., Ltd., Public interest Foundation corporation Global environmental strategy research institute.
A trading platform IoMT will enable easy customer-to-customer trading of emission savings. This will, in turn, reduce CO2 emission by encouraging the use of cheap renewable energy at rural households.
The blockchain platform will be developed by the partners and the pilot will evaluate the effectiveness of the business model.
Solomon Sunny is the market reporter for Smartereum, one of the global leaders in Ethereum, blockchain and currency news. He produces technical price updates on digital currencies and writes recent developments about blockchain.
