New carbon asset development management tool, Enchain Technology and IBM use blockchain technology to promote a low-carbon future

At the 2016 World Internet Conference, Beijing Enerchain Zhonghe Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as: Enerchain Technology) and IBM jointly announced that the two parties will jointly deploy a carbon asset development platform based on blockchain technology, accelerate the construction of a national unified carbon emissions trading and reduction market, and jointly build a green, low-carbon and environmentally friendly future.

As the world's first company to use blockchain technology to support carbon asset development and management, Enerchain Technology is an important partner of China's seven major carbon exchanges. Enerchain Technology has been committed to using high-tech information technologies such as blockchain and the Internet of Things to build a unified carbon asset management platform for finance, energy conservation, and environmental protection. In this cooperation with IBM, both parties will use blockchain technology innovation to deploy a carbon asset development platform to help companies efficiently and uniformly develop carbon assets and respond to global climate change challenges. The platform is expected to become the world's first carbon asset development platform deployed based on blockchain technology. Carbon asset development (i.e., carbon emission reduction quota development) has now become the best way to encourage companies to use carbon emission reduction technologies for production.

China has been the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter for eight consecutive years, and the central government has strict carbon emission reduction targets for each province and city every year. Many high-emission enterprises need to purchase emission reduction quotas from low-emission enterprises based on their emission reduction responsibilities, so that low-emission enterprises can use these funds to invest in more green technology carbon emission reduction technology innovations. Based on blockchain technology, establishing an efficient carbon asset development platform is expected to become an important way to control carbon emissions, which is of great significance to China, the world's largest carbon emitter. However, the traditional carbon asset development process is time-consuming, labor-intensive and costly. At the same time, the entire process will also involve carbon asset trading companies, government regulatory departments, industry management departments, carbon asset exchanges, third-party verification and certification agencies, expert committees and other parties. The average development of carbon assets takes a long time; in addition, each participating node in the development process will have a large amount of document data transmission, which is prone to data transmission errors and process errors, hindering the production of carbon assets.

The carbon asset trading platform based on the new blockchain technology will promote more seamless collaboration among all participants. The data records of any node in the multi-node network are shared in the ledger, which will greatly improve the development and management efficiency of carbon assets. At the same time, with the "unalterable" characteristics of blockchain technology, this platform ensures that the data of each node is traceable and transparent and visible to the members in the chain in real time, thereby reducing unnecessary notarization processes. In addition, Enchain Technology is also working on making the carbon asset development and management process more intelligent through smart contracts, which will be launched in the second phase of the product. The entire process becomes transparent, visible, and information-sharing. It is expected that in the first phase, the carbon asset development cycle can be greatly compressed on the original average level. In the future, with the further development and maturity of blockchain technology and the widespread deployment of the energy Internet of Things, the development time cycle and economic cost of carbon assets will be further compressed, the production efficiency of carbon assets will be greatly improved, the production and management costs of carbon assets will be reduced, and the efficient and rapid circulation of carbon assets in the market will be ensured.

Li Junfeng, Director of China's National Center for Climate Change Strategy Research and International Cooperation, said:

“After the signing of the Paris Agreement, China, as an important signatory, needs to assume the responsibility of a major country in implementing global climate governance, continue to fulfill its climate change action targets before 2020, actively implement its independent contribution, build a national carbon emissions trading market, effectively control and constrain high-energy-consuming and high-emission industries and enterprises, encourage the development of clean energy, and further promote the development of energy conservation and emission reduction. This is not only an inherent need to promote my country's sustainable development, but also our responsibility to build a community with a shared future for mankind.”

Regarding the cooperation to deploy a carbon asset development platform based on blockchain technology, Cao Yin, chief architect of Enchain Technology, said:

"We are very pleased to cooperate with IBM in the field of carbon emission reduction and jointly build a carbon asset development and management platform. As the developer and operator of the platform, Enchain Technology will also work with the carbon asset trading market to promote the development of the platform. IBM is an important initiator of the Hyperledger project, and Enchain Technology has also joined the Hyperledger project. The open source Hyperledger project has laid a solid foundation for us to jointly use blockchain technology to achieve breakthrough innovations in the carbon asset trading market. In addition, as the founder of the 'Green Horizon' project, IBM has also been unremittingly promoting China's environmental protection and green development, which is consistent with our original intention of devoting ourselves to the cause of carbon emission reduction. We plan to work with IBM to jointly promote the blockchain management model of carbon assets to the world, form a transnational carbon trading market, establish a global green and low-carbon development ecosystem, and jointly address the problem of global climate warming."

Chen Liming, Chairman of IBM Greater China, said:

“The exploration of IBM and Enchain Technology in the field of carbon emission reduction using blockchain technology is of great significance. This is an important step for IBM to help Chinese companies actively build a win-win, fair and reasonable global climate change governance mechanism based on innovative technology. As an important founding member of the Hyperledger project, IBM is committed to providing more innovative enterprise-level blockchain technology platforms and solutions to help Chinese companies promote the construction of a blockchain ecosystem.”