Taken on their own, climate action and Web3 technology each hold value and have the ability to help solve pressing global issues. In collaboration, however, the potential opportunities are nearly endless. Flowcarbon Co-founder and CEO Dana Gibber discussed the possibilities with NEAR CEO Marieke Flament at Flowcarbon’s 2023 ETHDenver Climate Summit, in a conversation moderated by Flowcarbon Co-founder and COO Caroline Klatt.
The conversation kicked off a day of discussions about how Web3 can galvanize climate action through innovative technology like that being developed by Flowcarbon.
Blockchain has been criticized in the past for doing harm to the environment, but innovation in the industry has led to climate neutrality, tangible actions and real solutions. Blockchain technology is now being leveraged to do good and solve crises, like the urgent issue of climate change.
“This is the first such movement to exist on Web3 of all kinds of projects, protocols, individuals and investors coming together around a shared mission and building solutions that are interoperable with each other,” said Dana Gibber, CEO of Flowcarbon.
The instantaneous, permissionless interoperability of blockchain allows many projects to work on solving the problem of climate change, unlocking a massive opportunity that didn’t exist in web2 ecosystems. A key aspect of galvanizing this movement at scale is creating technology that is usable for everyone, thereby allowing for mass adoption and ultimately, collaboration.
“Ultimately, what I still hear often today is that there is a lot of territorialism, but who cares?” said Marieke Flament, CEO of NEAR Foundation. “The end users are not going to care. What they are going to care about is this technology enabling them to do something that they could not before.”
Flowcarbon is at the forefront of pursuing climate action by way of Web3, in leading the movement to tokenize carbon credits. Major standards bodies like Gold Standard have taken up consultations on tokenization, a clear signal that Web3 will likely be adopted in various ways in the market.
“As a community we have gotten this off chain market — the carbon markets — to very seriously and officially consider moving their operations on chain,” said Gibber. “What a momentous moment for ReFi.”
