GoodCarbon - Development of a marketplace for the exchange of CO2 certificates

GoodCarbon is a Berlin-based company founded in 2021. They have made it their goal to give large companies access to CO2 tokens. Together with Generation Forest Group, a pioneer in sustainable forestry, who have already had great success in the field of reforestation, they want to prevent advancing deforestation and promote reforestation. These are at the same time one of the five most important levers for CO₂ reduction and one of the decisive measures for a positive impact on biodiversity.

Together with GoodCarbon, the first phase was to clarify whether and how the tokenization of CO2 certificates works in Germany and which third parties monitor this process. Furthermore, research was conducted on the topic of nature-based climate solutions, including the conservation and renaturation of forests and oceans. Once all stakeholders involved were identified and specifications integrated into the development process, the development of a marketplace that brings together buyers of certificates and sellers began.

As a young company in the market, at the beginning of the project there was neither a comprehensively large team nor the technical expertise to realize such a project. With the assignment to develop the platform, we were able to accompany GoodCarbon in the so important first steps and provide the necessary expertise and resources. At the same time, the actual company structure of GoodCarbon could be established and a dedicated team could be built up to manage the project in the long term. The construction of the platform succeeded within a few weeks.

Blockchain technology was used in this project, as blockchain has a positive impact on contract verification and transaction traceability:

• Secure transactions
• Reduction of compliance costs
• Speeding up the processing of data/token transfers.

Blockchain is decentralized, and everything from contracts to token balances to transactions is publicly accessible. This provides users with more transparency and reduces the trust deficit, which is usually non-existent or unproven. The immutability of the blockchain also makes it even more secure for users. To give users more control over their data and actions, we implemented an integration with a third-party wallet custody provider (Tangany). This way, we were able to ensure that no one has control over actions related to their wallet, such as transferring tokens from their wallet. Confidence in a sustainable and secure solution were our top priorities for this project, in addition to rapid implementation.

In the summer of 2022, the goodcarbon.earth marketplace could go live in its first phase. Access is granted to a number of trusted projects that ensure future carbon flows are secured. A convenient and legally compliant purchasing process provides buyers with an optimal and secure user experience.

The goal of bringing buyers and sellers together has been achieved and is now being further developed to make it available to the general public in the foreseeable future.