Open Collaboration
Open Collaboration on Next Generation Digital Solutions to Transform Climate Actions and Sustainability
ClimateCHECK, Gold Standard, and IOTA Foundation are announcing a white paper and founding of an open collaboration on next generation digital solutions for measurement reporting and verification (MRV) to achieve the ambitious climate goals of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The envisioned digital solutions will support transformational systems change to scale high-impact climate action that catalyses sustainable development.
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The technical foundation of the next generation digital solutions will ensure cohesiveness, interoperability, and systems access to all through a technical backbone that will be: open source, without user fees, low-energy to support remote users, modular, and with the highest levels of data integrity and security. The system will integrate with other digital platforms, hubs, and infrastructure and will support proprietary applications where applicable to reward market
leaders.
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To ensure credibility, the digital solutions will foster innovative approaches in governance including technical, legal, accounting, and reporting permissions; social engagement and crowdsourcing through online user communities for standards development and assurance; and financial innovations that initiate new business models, digital currency transactions, smart contracts.
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The consortium will begin development of core system elements in Q1 2022 including innovative solutions for MRV, data integrity, standards and related governance. The consortium will invite stakeholder participation as an open network and a “big tent” community of practice, to digitally scale climate actions at the magnitude required, to ensure equitable access, to safeguard the credibility of system inputs and outputs, and to respond rapidly to evolving
knowledge, data, new technologies, and growing fields such as climate adaptation.
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The open collaboration builds upon 25 years of evolution in the industry, from manual methods through first generation digital technologies, to current explorations with Distributed Ledger Technology and Artificial Intelligence. The open collaboration helps advance the “next generation” of digital applications, such as the IOTA Foundation joint work with Dell Technologies and Intel on Project Alvarium to establish the core capabilities to monitor data as it is transferred from its point of creation, to its point of consumption, or from the sensor, to the local network, through the edge infrastructure and into the cloud where it’s integrated into an application. The capability to have oversight and transparency in data in a granular fashion across the complete IT infrastructure will allow an unparalleled ability for trust and compliance in the data to be established, and more importantly quantified.
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The effort to develop next generation digital solutions for MRV builds upon years of expertise and collaboration among the founding members. IOTA Foundation and ClimateCHECK have collaborated since 2019 to leverage 3rd generation distributed ledger technology (DLT) for climate actions and launched DigitalMRV in 2020 in collaboration with the Reciclo Organicos program in Chile and the Government of Canada. Gold Standard and ClimateCHECK have collaborated numerous times starting at an event in 2015 during COP21 (“Next Generation Standards Collaboration for Climate Neutrality and Resilience”), and in launching multi-stakeholder initiatives such as Climate Ledger Initiative and the Climate Chain Coalition.
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As an open collaboration, stakeholders will be invited to join in this transformative approach to achieve the ambitious climate goals of the Paris Agreement and the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Tom Baumann, CEO of ClimateCHECK said: “Many people agree, to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and the SDGs requires transformational change – innovative technologies alone cannot overcome all the challenges and achieve sustainability and prosperity for all the people of the world. There are many synergistic efforts towards policy innovation, governance innovation, financial innovation – among others – yet there needs system integration. ClimateCHECK is proud to collaborate with IOTA Foundation and Gold Standard to develop next generation digital solutions for measurement, reporting and verification.”
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Patricia Fuller, Canada's Ambassador for Climate Change said: "Canada is proud of our collaboration with Chile on digital measurement reporting and verification (MRV) pilots. Together with private sector partners, these pilots implemented state-of-the-art methods to track and report emissions in real-time. Canada is pleased that our collaboration with Chile has contributed to solutions that will help countries to achieve their climate commitments and meet their reporting requirements under the Paris Agreement and the Global Sustainable Development Goals."
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Margaret Kim, CEO of Gold Standard said: “Gold Standard is pleased to be a leader in this transformative initiative. We are committed to transforming our Standard in an open, scalable, and accessible manner to support global efforts to meet Paris Agreement targets and the Global Sustainable Development Goals. Gold Standard is proud to collaborate with ClimateCHECK and IOTA Foundation. We are also excited to welcome robust public and private collaboration on a scale that reflects the magnitude of the task before us.“
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Gerardo Canales, Director at ImplementaSur (Chile) said: "Applying digital MRV solutions to projects of the Canada-Chile program Reciclo Orgánicos has proven to be an efficient and secure way to facilitate the flow of information with the speed, cost-efficiency and integrity that is required to support the achievement of the urgent climate goals we have in front of us. We expect that collaboration schemes between government and private sector, from the creation of MRV protocols to their digital application, are replicated around the globe to accelerate the pace of our mitigation efforts.”
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Mat Yarger of IOTA Foundation said, “IOTA's collaborations with ClimateCHECK, ECCC and Dell Technologies is bridging industries with data confidence, providing higher trust for climate data solutions to a market that needs trust to scale. Expanding IOTA's collaborations with Gold Standard and progressing developments with smart contract integrations, enabling true smart standards, is necessary to create the true climate action required to solve these imminent threats to our planet and enable proactive ESG investment in solutions that show impact.”
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The open collaboration supplements the rapidly evolving space for digital MRV and related digital solutions. See the white paper for more information.
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Related Resources:
New Smart Standards System to Power Digital Solutions for Climate and Sustainability (2020)
Towards Ontology and Blockchain Based Measurement, Reporting, and Verification for Climate Action (2020)
Outlook on Distributed Ledger Technologies (2019)
Blockchain and Emerging Digital Technologies for Enhancing Post-2020 Climate Markets (2018)
Using the Disruptive Force of Distributed Ledger Technology to Fight Climate Disruption (2018)