About
Created as a social enterprise by BNP Paribas, ClimateSeed is a digital voluntary carbon offsetting platform that helps connect organizations with tangible sustainable projects to cut carbon emissions and support the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Innovation presentation
Over the last 12 months BNP Paribas has built on its existing strengths in sustainability to go beyond green finance. By embedding the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the core of its strategy, business model and culture, BNP Paribas has integrated sustainability in all its business lines and broadened its product offering. Transitioning to a low carbon economy requires solutions that embrace new technologies; ClimateSeed, which was launched by BNP Paribas in 2018, is an example of how innovation and sustainability together can accelerate positive impact.
ClimateSeed is a voluntary carbon offsetting platform to help connect organizations with tangible projects to cut carbon emissions. The ClimateSeed marketplace connects businesses looking to offset their carbon emissions and contribute to the UN SDGs with project developers offering voluntary carbon credits and looking for funding. ClimateSeed aims to increase the transparency, security and efficiency of the voluntary carbon market through a thorough verification process, that is built on a simple, secure, and user-friendly digital platform.
ClimateSeed is a social cause-driven company and was launched during the Global Social Business Summit in November 2018 with Nobel Peace prize laureate Prof Yunus. The entire project, business plan, and articles of association have been reviewed by Grameen Creative Lab, whose mission is to help organizations implement social businesses as a way to meet society's most pressing needs. As a Social Business, ClimateSeed must reinvest its profits to maximize its environmental and social impact and includes projects that create decarbonization educational programs for example.
Uniqueness of the project
The ClimateSeed platform is a digital solution to offset unavoidable emissions through the financial contribution to sustainable projects. We offer the possibility to do all this process digitally. ClimateSeed is unique in terms of transparency and robustness compared to its competitors. ClimateSeed combines the financial and operational strength of a top-tier bank, the agility of a startup, and the legitimacy of a Social Business.
The ClimateSeed team has been directly collaborating with the Grameen Creative Lab - the consulting arm of Prof. Yunus - to become a leading Social Business dedicated to tackling environmental issues. As such, 100% of its profits will be reinvested in education, project development and technological solutions to counter climate change.
Innovative aspects and differentiators include:
• Digital onboarding: contributors and project carriers can start the onboarding process through ClimateSeed's digital onboarding questionnaire. They must go through ClimateSeed's due diligence analysis in order to become an active participant in the platform.
• Digital Project review: project carriers have to pass an additional step before being able to list their projects on the platform. Each and every project is reviewed by ClimateSeed's Sustainability Committee. The platform allows committee members to directly interact with project carriers through a dedicated communication channel, in case the former need further information from the latter before deciding whether the project can be listed.
• Digital project sheets and profiles: contributors and project carriers have their digital profiles on the platform. Projects carriers can create digital project sheets (following a predefined template) to promote their projects through the platform. They can also set up carbon credit prices. In these project sheets, project carriers can explain their project, how it works, and include media and additional documents to provide as much information as possible about the project in one single place. Connection: the platform connects contributors and project carriers. The first ones can select and identify projects following several criteria, including the project location, typology, SDGs targeted. This functionality creates a transparent selection process based on objective criteria and overcomes the current OTC market practices.
• Transparent offsetting: the platform has trade execution features and interfacing with the post-trade system. These features include project cart, contribution simulation, transaction, portfolio, and the interfacing with the post-trade system. This part of the platform allows to securely and transparently offset unavoidable emissions on a predefined transparent price. ClimateSeed manages the cash and carbon credit transaction (and retirement), preventing secondary market and double-counting issues.
• Education and communication: project features and multimedia are downloadable to allow contributors to shape their communication or educational campaigns. The platform features include a voting module to engage stakeholders in the project selection process.
• Project monitoring: once the offsetting process is concluded, the contributors can keep in touch with project carriers to continuously monitor the project progress.
