ACR Kicks Off Digital Assets Consultation

The American Carbon Registry (ACR), a leading carbon offset crediting program, is exploring new opportunities in the carbon markets presented by digital innovations. ACR has been engaged with numerous Web3 companies interested in creating digital carbon assets based on ACR carbon offset credits.

These discussions have occurred bilaterally, between ACR and representatives of various coalitions, and via ACR’s participation in formal working groups, including the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA) Digital Climate Markets Task Force as well as in the Gold Standard Digital Working Groups.

In May 2022, ACR announced updated program rules prohibiting the tokenization of ACR carbon offset credits unless explicitly authorized by ACR. The updated rules were designed to protect the integrity of ACR offset credits and maintain confidence in carbon markets at this critical time for achieving climate action.

It is our intention to advance the dialogue around opportunities that digitization presents to the markets with the aim of developing program rules and infrastructure to support tokenization of ACR carbon offset credits. To that end, ACR invited participation in our Digital Assets Consultation to achieve two objectives toward progress:

• Share ACR’s current thinking around the risks and potential hurdles that need to be addressed.
• Gather information from a wide variety of proponents about how different offerings and technologies can best be structured and deployed to mitigate these concerns and advance climate goals.

The Digital Assets Consultation kicked off in September 2022 with background information and a first set of questions sent to participants. Topics being explored include:

• Proposed service offerings and how they advance climate action
• Maintaining environmental integrity of the carbon markets on-chain
• Market access, democratization, and transparency
• Blockchain security and the regulatory environment

ACR anticipates following up on the questionnaires with a second phase of bilateral conversations with consultation participants and potentially a convening at the end of the process. We appreciate that there are multiple angles from which to examine this subject and ACR is considering a third phase of engagement aimed at a wider audience to present and receive feedback from ACR account holders and other users on a variety of considerations that will ultimately shape ACR’s approach to digital assets. Sign up to receive the ACR newsletter and updates.