Earlier this month, the world’s second largest carbon standard and registry, Gold Standard, started integrating their program registry with the Climate Action Data Trust (CAD Trust), powered by Chia DataLayer. The full dataset is expected to be added by the end of the year.
The Switzerland National Registry also had a project added to CAD Trust. Both Gold Standard and Switzerland were expected additions based on a presentation at a regional workshop in Bhutan in August 2024.
Expected national registries:
- Ghana
- Singapore
Switzerland- Colombia
- Peru
- Argentina
- Chile
Other expected registries:
- International Carbon Registry
- Acorn
- ClimaFi
- Climate Action Reserve
- Plan Vivo Foundation
- Puro.earth
Gold Standard- ART TREES (REDD+)
- American Carbon Registry
Governments, banks, and companies interacting with the Chia blockchain and trusting it for tracking their carbon projects and credit lifecycle is testament to the security and technology the Chia blockchain enables. Recall the World Bank ran several simulation studies testing various blockchain solutions (including Ethereum) before settling on Chia as the blockchain to support the production launch of the Climate Action Data Trust.
The simulations tested the data model and architecture, and explored multiple blockchain technologies including Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric platform, Kaleido Blockchain Software and Chia Network.
Gemma Torras Vives, World Bank Blogs, March 07 2023
The CAD Trust operational system is leveraging the Chia Network’s Data Layer built on a public and permissionless blockchain technology.
“Why data infrastructure is key for a transparent carbon market“
Inching closer to covering the entire voluntary carbon market
The largest carbon standard, Verra, was added to CAD Trust last year. With the top two largest standards on CAD Trust, this captures well over 85% of all voluntary carbon credits issued to date. The next two largest standards (American Carbon Registry and Climate Action Reserve) are in the process of being added to CAD Trust as well resulting in essentially full coverage the voluntary carbon market.
Connection of the second largest carbon standard to the Climate Action Data Trust – a major milestone on the road to long-term efforts of linking, aggregating and harmonizing carbon registry data.
CAD Trust Press Release, November 19 2024
“Gold Standard connects to the Climate Action Data Trust“
Once all four major standards are recording their projects, credit issuances and credit retirements on CAD Trust, it will replace the need for manual consolidation and tracking efforts such as the Voluntary Registry Offsets Database from the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project.
Putting it into perspective
CAD Trust is just one product built on the Chia blockchain, but it involves many entities and governments in its development, maintenance, and use — and they are using XCH to sign and submit spend bundles into the mempool on a regular basis.
Beyond that, it remains to be seen if we’ll see further tokenization, trading, and retirement of carbon credits on Chia.
