Mastercard is offering its customers the ability to reduce their carbon footprint using the company’s blockchain-based Provenance Solution.
Customers can now choose more eco-friendly products—anything from coffee to t-shirts—then interact with the carbon credits which relate to them. These are represented by non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, and unique markers.
It’s a great way for customers to identify green products and services, then purchase them through major providers.
Buyers want transparency, flexibility, choice
The payment giant developed the Provenance Solution to help brands track the journey of their products, ensuring visibility through the entire supply chain.
According to Ashok Venkateswaran, Mastercard’s Head of Digital Assets and Blockchain APAC, speaking at Australian Blockchain Week, the company is simply responding to consumers who are demanding “a lot more transparency” over what they buy and put in their bodies.
Mastercard has put in plenty of work behind the scenes to make this happen. The platform tracks and stores data relating to each brand’s carbon footprint on the blockchain. Details can then be broken down to the level of a cup of coffee or item of clothing for customers.
This allows customers to choose products which are kinder to the environment—and directly offset carbon emissions.
Blockchain carbon credits: all about collaboration
Mastercard is actively developing partnerships with companies who prioritise carbon neutrality. They then build and nurture these relationships, acquiring carbon credits which are added into the Provenance Solution for tracking.
Greening Australia regards one carbon credit as one tonne of carbon dioxide that has been removed from the atmosphere.
The system is being put into practice at the Sydney Writers Festival which runs from April 26 to May 2, 2021. As part of a collaboration with vendor Fresh Supply Co, carbon emissions from coffee consumed there will be recorded and offset.
Client interface C2Zero will be responsible for attaching carbon credits to the products—and this is where the NFTs come into play. As an example, a 1,500-gram carbon allowance can be added to a pack of coffee via a non-fungible token.
It’s the future of green buying power!
Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
