Million-dollar startup taps Algorand to fight climate change

Blockchain marketplace Climatetrade will be building its new CO2 carbon offsetting platform on Algorand, a top-50 cryptocurrency project that is gunning for scalability and transactional performance. 

Climatetrade announced Wednesday that it has selected the Algorand blockchain to power its carbon offsetting marketplace, which is designed to help organizations achieve CO2 neutrality — a key pillar in the fight against climate change.

Climatetrade is building on Algorand for its “flexible architecture, low transaction fees and scalability of transactional performance,” according to CEO Francisco Benedito.

Algorand is the 49th largest cryptocurrency project with a total market of around $393 million. Its ALGO token currently trades at around $0.34.

Founded in 2016, Climatetrade allows companies to offset their CO2 footprint by purchasing carbon credits directly on the platform. It also prepares organization-specific sustainability reports, which are becoming more important in the age of corporate social responsibility, or CSR.

CSR considerations have also become an important driver of the so-called investing-with-a-conscience movement. ESR investing, or strategies that account for a company’s environmental, social, and governance factors, was once a niche movement in the financial markets. This is now a trillion-dollar industry, according to data from Morningstar.

Net inflows into ESR funds topped $71 billion in the second quarter, driven largely by interest in sustainable investing.

Climatetrade has reportedly secured €1 million, or $1.21 million USD, in seed investments for its CO2 marketplace. Borderless Capital, which funds “category-leading businesses” using Algorand technology, is one of its backers.