In episode 179 of the Disruptors for GOOD podcast, I speak with Kieran White, Co-Founder & CEO at
Return, on incentivizing social climate action using on-chain environmental assets.
Return is a climate technology startup that offers verified and incentivized social climate action to individuals, corporations, and communities. It uses blockchain technology to create a protocol that directs funding towards present or future climate projects using on-chain environmental assets, which help fight climate change.
Why does Return exist?
Despite the estimated 30-fold growth of the Voluntary Carbon Market by 2030, this will only satisfy 2% of the overall demand required to combat the climate crisis, according to scientific estimations. Voluntary carbon offsetting, both for individuals and corporations, has not achieved the level of adoption required. Although recent developments, such as corporate Net-Zero commitments, have aided in this area, there is still much ground to cover.
After conducting extensive research, Return discovered that the reason for this lack of adoption was the absence of incentive alignment among the three key stakeholders: consumers, businesses, and climate projects themselves. By leveraging some of the innovative tools provided by blockchain, we can finally achieve this necessary incentive alignment.