A new breed of entrepreneurs is harnessing blockchain technology to improve how the world finances sustainability. And they're finding big-name backers like Emurgo - a founding entity behind the environmentally sustainable Cardano blockchain - eager to drive this decentralized vision forward.

On May 7th, Changeblock - a carbon market technology startup backed by Emurgo Africa’s investment arm - took to the virtual stage for a webinar on pioneering sustainable blockchain solutions.

The webinar featured an engaging dialogue between Ahmed Amer, CEO of Emurgo Africa - a subsidiary of the venture arm backing Changeblock - and Billy Richards, the carbon tech startup's founder and CEO. The conversation progressed with Richards outlining Changeblock's ambitious plan to leverage blockchains like Cardano in building a transparent, liquid marketplace for trading high-integrity environmental assets like carbon credits and financing sustainability initiatives.

For his part, Amer emphasized Emurgo's commitment to supporting innovative blockchain solutions tackling climate change, providing crucial insights from the perspective of a key Cardano ecosystem entity.

"Our investment in Changeblock aligns with Emurgo's commitment to fostering climate change solutions on Cardano," said Amer. "Together, we aim to bring global leaders and changemakers to double down on viable, monetizable strategies for achieving net zero emissions."

Indeed, using blockchain technologies in the carbon market is an ambitious play that could supercharge investment into carbon capture, renewable energy, reforestation efforts and more by treating certified emissions reductions like any other tradable commodity. And the potential impact is immense.

"The climate finance market is expected to hit $1 trillion annually by 2030 as countries work towards net zero goals," stated Changeblock’s Billy Richards. "But there are massive inefficiencies and lack of standardization hampering growth. That's the $1 trillion-plus opportunity we're unlocking by bringing environmental assets to the blockchain."

Overcoming Carbon Market Opaqueness with Blockchain

At the heart of Changeblock's solutions is using blockchains like Cardano's environmentally sustainable ledger to add much-needed transparency, traceability and legitimacy to a muddied, fragmented carbon credits ecosystem.

"There are no clear rules set right now, which is why many organizations still don't participate in carbon markets," Amer explained. "Blockchain provides that missing monitoring, reporting and verification layer where emissions data is verified by a decentralized network of validators, not just a single organization."

Essentially, Changeblock uses integrated Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and oracles to feed raw emissions data onto Cardano's public blockchain. This data is then packaged into non-fungible tokens (NFTs) representing verified emissions reductions or removals according to standardized methodologies.

These quantified climate credits can then be fractionalized, listed on Changeblock's decentralized exchange and traded as liquid crypto tokens - providing the transparency of a public blockchain where anyone can audit the data inputs powering each credit.

"It's like when you buy a Tesla share, you can see transparently if they're missing or exceeding their expected output and production," said Amer. "With blockchain, the same will apply to climate credits. Market pricing will directly reflect the measurable impact being achieved."

DeFi for Climate Finance Innovation

Decentralized applications and platforms can tap into these tokenized environmental assets to offer new structured financial products:

- Crypto funds that earn yield from investing directly in tokenized carbon projects

- Fully on-chain carbon offsets for emissions from blockchain transactions

- Decentralized options, futures and derivatives markets for hedging climate risk

- Novel incentive programs rewarding individuals for verifiably reducing their carbon footprint

"We're turning sustainable action into a valuable, tradable asset that directly incentivizes more climate solutions while giving major institutions like banks and pension funds a new asset class to finance green development," said Richards. "DeFi is a big part of that."

Looking ahead, the Changeblock team sees an interoperable future where global policy frameworks like the Paris Agreement's Article 6 bridge environmental registries and legacy carbon markets directly onto blockchains - essentially creating unified liquidity for all certified climate assets, both new and pre-existing.

As Richards concluded: "We see ourselves as building the plumbing and base layers to make financing sustainability not only profitable, but seamlessly integrated into global markets and capital flows."

Despite the lofty ambitions, blockchain's role in tackling climate change is still in its earliest phases. But pioneers like Changeblock and Emurgo are quickly validating the utility of decentralized ledgers and tokenization models for driving real environmental impact at scale.