Empowering Change: Unleashing Carbon Finance for Real Social and Environmental Impact

What can you tell us about CarbonClear?

CarbonClear is a pioneer in data-driven carbon credit issuance from the solar off-grid sector.  We aim at scaling our data-driven model as a standard for the Voluntary Carbon Market, transforming carbon finance to tangible social and environmental impact in underserved communities. 

CarbonClear’s transformative new model for the carbon market enables fast, reliable, and cost-effective generation of verified carbon credits in a globally accessible and inclusive value chain. The data-driven model leverages clear data points from the onboarded solar partners, building trust through transparency and measurable impact. Since its founding five years ago, CarbonClear has forged strategic partnerships with a number of the best-established Solar Home System distributors in the market, the key third-party software providers used to track usage and payments of PAYGO systems, as well as with DNV that acts as third-party verifier of the robustness and integrity of the issued carbon credits.

What are you going to present at Vivatech?

We want to spotlight a partnership that will foster the sustainable development and access to energy financing in Africa through the Voluntary Carbon Markets. 

ENGIE Energy Access — one of the leading off-grid providers in Africa, ENGIE Global Energy Management & Sales (GEMS) have partnered in a pioneer agreement to accelerate the use of climate finance by the off-grid sector in sub-Saharan Africa through issuing and selling data-driven and impactful carbon credits. CarbonClear will be using its innovative and fully digital model to certify the carbon offset generated from the solar kits distributed by ENGIE Energy Access to rural and off-grid communities living in sub-Saharan Africa. 

ENGIE GEMS will then assist ENGIE Energy Access in selling these credits to climate-conscious organisations wanting to offset their greenhouse gas emissions with projects that have a high social and environmental impact. The partnership targets to issue 500.000 tCO2e of offsets.

This partnership with ENGIE Energy Access and GEMS happens at a time when a number of global initiatives are exploring ways of strengthening the integrity of the voluntary carbon market, as well as its liquidity. By scaling CarbonClear’s proven data-driven model, this partnership will provide measurable carbon finance to impactful solar off-grid deployments throughout the marginalised areas of the world where ENGIE Energy Access operates

How is it innovative?

CarbonClear's tech-powered value chain is an inclusive, self-enforcing, and measurable impact model that reduces the project-to-issuance timeline from 3 years to 3 months and cuts auditing costs to a minimum, without compromising the robustness and integrity of the verification.

The implementation of the model engages a sector that currently does not have access to the carbon market, and in so doing it addresses the yearly 12.9Bn USD financing gap that is needed to attain universal electricity access by 2030.

Today, the model is fully operational and has become the leading carbon credit solution for the solar off-grid sector.

What do you hope to achieve from your participation?

We will be demonstrating the value of our inclusive market model for impact at scale.

Carbon credits are an essential tool to speed up the implementation of lasting sustainable solutions. Used right, they can accelerate emission reduction and funnel funding to the underserved communities that need it the most. We are convinced that the Vivatech audience will be susceptible to this and help us achieve our ambition : generating at least 5M tons of carbon credits, the revenue of which will finance small-scale distributed projects

What would you invent if you had one magic power?

If we had magical powers, we would invent an all-encompassing, self-sustaining system that ensures equitable and universal access to clean energy. This system would surmount all existing barriers such as cost, geography, and infrastructure, making sustainable energy like solar power readily available to everyone, particularly those 500 million individuals in Subsaharan Africa currently living without electricity. It would incorporate the efficiency of technology and data to streamline delivery and minimize costs, using mechanisms like carbon finance and ESG metrics to fund its implementation. With the power of magic, such a system would not just be a dream, but a transformative reality.