What
Pre-proposal discussion re Popcorn’s current carbon neutral objectives and potential to increase commitment to Carbon Negative
Background
According to our landing page Popcorn calculates and neutralizes blockchain carbon emissions by partnering with carbon sequestration and negative emission projects.
It is not clear how the projects are scoped in order to fully offset Popcorn’s emissions and whether there are audits and safeguards in place to ensure the projects achieve required carbon neutrality.
There is only one reference to Carbon in the whitepaper which states:
Users electing to interact with Popcorn smart contracts, may, at the same time, be contributing to the public benefit by supporting beneficiaries responsible for osetting carbon emissions.
This suggests that carbon neutrality may be achieved indirectly or passively if we consider projects implemented by donation recipients.
There is a risk that double counting occurs with this approach if the carbon offsets of those projects are already allocated (eg to the recipient implementing the project).
Popcorn is also one of the few emerging crypto projects with stated goal of delivering positive social and environmental impacts.
Edited after posting to add to following:
I since located a lot of detailed information about how Popcorn has teamed up with Patch.io to automate the allocation of offsets mapped to running on Ethereum.
Information is in a Medium article which links to external Yahoo! Finance article with the detail.
Quick fix would be to include this detailed info on https://popcorn.network/ including white paper.
Questions
- Should Popcorn ratchet up its climate commitments from Carbon Neutral to Carbon Negative?
And, regardless of item 1,
- Should we further define how current projects are scoped in order to fully offset Popcorn’s emissions and set out what audits and safeguards in place to ensure the projects achieve required carbon neutrality?
Precedent
Elrond (EGLD) announced on 6 August 2021 that it was becoming Europe’s first Carbon negative blockchain protocol.
See Elrond Becomes First Carbon Negative Blockchain in Europe
Its price ($115) at announcement increased 420% over 3.5 months to ATH of $490 in November which included launch of a liquidity incentive program in Nov.
Whilst the rise shouldn’t be attributable to Carbon negativity, it’s clear that achieving carbon negativity is not detrimental according to investors.
It would be great to see where this discussion goes and, if there’s merit, lead to a proposal if there is interest.
Thanks for reading
Brett