How JustCarbon Works

This seems pretty established. So why does JustCarbon need to exist? And how does our process differ from these existing practises?
Firstly, whilst the market is only two decades old, it’s surprisingly low tech. Verification is completed manually, credits are bought and sold over the phone and registries are nothing fancier than basic databases.
Secondly, too much emphasis has been placed on the co-benefits, which are the enemy to liquidity. Of course the co-benefits are important, but if the market was more liquid they would benefit more people and at a greater scale anyway. Currently, the people who benefit the most from selling based on co-benefits are the brokers and retailers, not the Project Developers, since matching buyers and sellers is much more manual. This means fewer funds are reinvested back into more climate action.
Thirdly, there’s no agreed price for carbon credits. Since the market is illiquid, manual and localised, the price varies wildly depending on where you buy from.
Lastly, buyers find it difficult to enter the market. They want to support climate action and to offset their emissions, but a Google search (where most start) will just take you to the website of a broker or a retailer.
We have identified the market wants certainty, ease and speed, which a tokenised marketplace allows for. JustCarbon has been built to resolve all these issues in an easy-to-use platform backed with a highly robust blockchain.
This all manifests through the following process:
1.Anyone who has an offset they wish to turn into a JustCarbon Retirement Unit (JCR), be they a Project Developer, a broker/retailer or a previous buyer whose circumstances changed, applies to list their inventory on our platform.
2.We undertake a selection process that ensures their offsets meet the definition of carbon removal and adhere to our quality criteria.
3.A JCR is minted for each verified metric tonne that the seller lists.
4.If the offset exists as a carbon credit in the existing market, the credit is retired from the registry, so the only place it now physically exists is on JustCarbon’s secure blockchain as a JCR.
5.The owner then either sells their JCR via the JustCarbon platform or trades it on our own exchange or any other reputable exchange. The platform includes a simple ‘buy and burn’ feature for anyone who wants to simply reduce their or their organisation’s carbon footprint without delving into the features of the exchange.
6.Automatic market making will dictate the price at any given time, which will allow any exchange to list with a globally accepted, homogenous value.
7.New owners can either store their JCRs in their JustCarbon account/wallet, convert to a chain of choice and store in their own wallet, trade/exchange on their preferred exchange, or ‘burn’ i.e. retire their JCR to reduce their carbon footprint.
In many respects, JustCarbon is turning CO2 removal into an asset or a commodity. In fact, we’re calling it an ‘asset-backed token’ because you will physically own the underlying asset of the removed tonne of carbon by holding the only real-world manifestation of it, which is the JCR.
This approach also leads to fair pricing, with all sellers benefiting from price certainty, including the Project Developers, meaning more money being reinvested back into further climate action. Mark Carney’s Taskforce for Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets has highlighted that the price needs to grow to $120 a tonne (up from as little as $8 today) to stimulate production to necessary levels. In that sense, traders and speculators betting on this price rise will help the market in the short term, which will in turn encourage more Project Developers to enter the market.
Why JustCarbon is focusing on CO2 Removal
Although the industry doesn’t define them as such, there is a clear distinction between avoidance/reduction and removal. A good analogy to understand the difference is a sinking boat. To stop a boat from sinking, you need to plug the holes as quickly as you bail the water. If too much water gets in, both the increased weight of the boat and the potential that it leaks through portals, davits then eventually over the side means the boat reaches crucial tipping points and sinks. And even when the holes are plugged, you still need to get rid of the water.
However, you can bail the water at the same speed as it’s coming in and theoretically keep it afloat, or indeed bail faster than the leak by using pumps.
Many people have spent the last two decades attempting to only plug the holes, whilst the issue has been getting significantly worse. So for us, removing the CO2 that persists in the atmosphere is our biggest priority because a) too few people are focussing on it and b) the potential for removal is much greater than the potential for reductions.
This is our first point of difference as a platform, the fact that we will define exactly what CO2 removal involves and make it easier for the market to buy removals specifically.

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Why JustCarbon is focusing on CO2 Removal