Values and Responsibility

From the outset at ETC Group we have always taken a pro-active approach to offsetting the carbon footprint of our company and all of its products, and doing this the right way – going above and beyond what is required to assume our responsibility in helping to combat this Climate Crisis.

We partnered with Carbon Responsible for an independent calculation of our carbon footprint and through our relationship with South Pole, Durrell, and ClimateCare, we have carefully evaluated and selected accredited offset projects that resonate with us as a company. We don’t want to just tick a box.

Climate Action Projects to date

Safe Community Water Supply, Rwanda

Improving health and sanitation with access to clean water: Lack of safe water, along with poor sanitation and hygiene, is among the greatest causes of poverty in Africa. Without access to clean drinking water, breaking the poverty cycle is incredibly difficult. The Rwanda Safe Water Project both provides local communities with clean water and reduces CO2 emissions.
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Safe Community Water Supply, Rwanda illustration
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Rewild Carbon Offsetting Project

Durrell is working with local partners IPE (Instituto de Pesquisas Ecologicas), with whom they have partnered for many years, to restore 5,000 hectares of new forest through forest corridors and agroforestry. The project aims to plant 7 million trees, from over 100 different native species. The tree corridors provide lifelines for threatened wildlife including black lion tamarins, jaguars, and ocelots. In addition, the trees are grown in community-run nurseries and agroforestry provides income for nature-dependent communities that live there.

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Rewild Carbon Offsetting Project illustration
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Renewable hydropower for the island of Sumatra

This grid-connected, run-of-river hydroelectricity plant is built on the upper banks of the Musi River near Sumatra’s port city of Bengkulu. By harnessing the kinetic energy of powerful running water, the Musi River Hydro plant has a total-installed capacity of 210 MW and delivers over 765,000 MWh to Sumatra’s grid every year – that’s enough to meet the demands of over 700,000 Indonesians on average each year!

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Renewable hydropower for the island of Sumatra illustration
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Pamir Hydro Project, Tajikistan

This two-turbine 14MW hydroelectric power project generates around 94,000MWh of clean, reliable energy every year. This project is protecting local forests, cutting carbon and re-invigorating the local economy. For the first time in 15 years, the region’s homes, clinics, schools, government administrative buildings and businesses have uninterrupted power.

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Pamir Hydro Project, Tajikistan illustration
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Partners

Carbon Responsible

Carbon Responsible provides data-driven solutions & expert advisory to help develop and execute decarbonization strategies.
https://www.carbonresponsible.com
Carbon Responsible illustration
https://www.carbonresponsible.com

Southpole

South Pole has been at the forefront of decarbonization since 2006. With its global Climate Solutions platform, South Pole develops and implements comprehensive strategies that turn climate action into long-term business opportunities for companies, governments and organizations around the world.
https://www.southpole.com/
Southpole illustration
https://www.southpole.com/

Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI)

The Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI) is a research-driven institution providing carbon estimates for investments in cryptocurrencies and technologies such as Blockchain and DLT.

CCRI relies on established scientific methodologies published in highly ranked and peer-reviewed journals to estimate the energy consumption and carbon footprint of cryptocurrencies.
https://www.carbon-ratings.com/
Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI) illustration
https://www.carbon-ratings.com/

ClimateCare

ClimateCare helps organisations take responsibility for their climate impact by financing, developing, and managing carbon reduction projects across the world. Based in Oxford and Nairobi, ClimateCare helped create the voluntary carbon market and pioneered carbon finance for community development projects.
https://www.climatecare.org/
ClimateCare illustration
https://www.climatecare.org/

Durrell

Durrell’s mission as a charity is to save species from extinction, but in order to save species, their habitat needs to be saved. The organization has worked to restore and protect some of the most threatened habitats on the planet over the last 60 years.
https://www.durrell.org/wildlife/
Durrell illustration
https://www.durrell.org/wildlife/

Esg

Social

As a disruptive and relatively recent innovation, the social impacts of Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, both positive and negative, are still emerging. However, two evolving benefits brought by cryptocurrencies are already evident: financial inclusion and economic empowerment.

Many consider that human bias typical of traditional financial services can play out by discriminating against minorities, whether on ethnic, gender, religious or other grounds. Being free from these biases, cryptocurrencies are entirely inclusive, as evidenced by their growing popularity amongst certain minority groups.

‘Sending money home’ has always been a way that emigrants have helped their families, and some of the poorest countries in the world rely on these overseas remittances. In fact, they can be a meaningful part of national GDP. The incumbent remittance industry charges in the order of $25 billion per annum in transfer fees for funds often used for basic fundamental needs such as housing, education and healthcare. By contrast, cryptocurrencies enable this transfer at no cost, using a smartphone. The result? More and faster economic empowerment for those who need it most.

Governance

Being decentralised, and with embedded democratic and inclusive decision-making procedures, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies employ a totally different governance system to traditional financial institutions. This contrast makes direct comparison between the two difficult, and both have advantages and disadvantages. Governance advantages of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies include transparency and traceability. For instance, rather than relying on a selected - and generally exclusive - board to make strategic decisions around risk management and core procedures, the process is open to everyone in the community.

What’s more, it is transparent and all transactions are fully traceable, which is often not the case in the traditional financial system. A governance and transparency challenge for the crypto ecosystem is that individual identities can be difficult to trace, however this will likely change further down the road.