Solana Foundation, Ripple, GBBC and Others Form Partnership to Promote Crypto Solutions for Climate Change

The newly established NGO, Known as the Blockchain x Climate Leadership Network, is intended to be the 'biggest joint gathering of climate action innovators, leaders and manufacturers under one global roof," says a press release shared with CoinDesk.

The launch of BxC was announced at the CBBG meeting in conjunction with the 2023 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. The event, which brings together the world's leading companies and the biggest companies in the Swiss Alps, drew a host of crypto entities to last year's meeting just before the high-level company's series of collapses that left the industry in search of picking up the pieces.

This year, crypto's presence on the promenade outside the main forum center is comparatively muted, and the industry is making a concerted effort to attract attention to projects that have real-world applications and social benefit.

"I think the case of climate use is the most logical in terms of actual usefulness beyond that, let's say, Retail Speculative Participation," Daniel Hwang, BxC Policy Advisor, told CoinDesk in an interview in Davos.

Hwang, who is involved in the construction of the infrastructure for the initiative, including measurements of carbon offsets, that calculates reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, Her team has met weekly over the past two and a half years to organize educational workshops and forums. The initiative seeks to develop cooperative principles and best practices for blockchain climate efforts in various sectors, as well as cost-benefit analyses for cryptoclimate projects.

Efforts to use cryptography to support efforts to mitigate climate change are largely focused on creating new economies that do not harm the environment.

The Solana Foundation and Ripple are founding partners, whereas environmentally-oriented layer 1 blockchain Regen Network and association Climate Collective are supporting partners. The gbbc and eqo networks, specialising in the creation of such climate-conscious leadership networks, will lead the initiative.

Previously known as carbon offset group (bicowg) blockchain infrastructure, bxc brought together representatives from key crypto and environmental organizations (including coindesk) in Colombia in autumn 2022. Some of the working groups that have been formed over the course of this meeting – working on carbon market registries, requirements and verifiability, policy development, Regenerative Finance and Southern Emerging Markets – are still active today and will form the basis for BxC.

Read more: In the Colombian Andes, Figuring Out How Crypto Can Save the Climate