Poseidon is a non-profit foundation that empowers everyone to rebalance their climate impact with a breakthrough approach. Using blockchain and artificial intelligence, it gives consumers the opportunity to rebalance the climate impact of their lifestyle choices by supporting forest conservation projects around the world. We believe that controlling your carbon footprint should be as easy as checking your bank balance. Our solution will, for the first time, empower everyone to participate in climate action, all the way to the retail level. Our vision is to create a platform that integrates carbon credits into everyday life, enabling the seamless and transparent accountability for our carbon footprints as part of every purchase we make. Our first focus is on a retail integration, attaching carbon credits to everyday purchases, because we believe this can lead to the biggest change in the way carbon credits are used. With a simple and accessible method of purchasing carbon credits in place, each and every one of us will be able to support crucial land-based emission reduction projects that protect forests and national parks in some of the world’s most endangered areas, supporting local economies that will have a lasting positive impact on our planet.
We have already been integrated into Ben & Jerry's flagship London store, which you can read more about here (https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliversmith/2018/05/29/ben-jerrys-bets-on-blockchain-to-cancel-out-the-carbon-in-every-scoop/#69a17c85688c). Once we have achieved our first goal, we will expand the platform to corporates, traders, and governments. The need for a global carbon market is evident and we have received interest from both industry leaders and governments, highlighting how relevant and necessary our solution is. We believe in cooperation and cohesion; our approach is to give every market player the tools they need to participate alongside each other. We are a motivated team, dedicated to building a non-profit that focuses on having a deep and lasting impact on climate change. Each of us has in-depth experience in our respective fields and together we form a team with the required skills to make Poseidon, and our solution to this global problem, a success. Being a non-profit foundation, we can focus on creating sustainable impact and creating alliances in the carbon markets without financial interests. This allows us to build a platform that has one goal: saving our climate.
Ensuring quality
There are a multitude of carbon projects in the world and it can be challenging to know whether a specific carbon credit will provide the desired climate action. To ensure that our platform will create the positive impact we and our partners envision, it will be crucial to only offer the highest quality of carbon credits and only support the best carbon projects with our blockchain solution.
Ecosphere+ will ensure that any emission reduction projects that will be added to our blockchain platform receive rigorous due diligence and are subject to ongoing monitoring to the highest global standards to ensure both quality and relevance of the resulting carbon credits, both for those provided directly by Ecosphere+ and those offered by alternative suppliers. This quality control is an important part of the Poseidon platform and will guarantee that carbon credits deliver the promised impact. Ecosphere+ is part of the impact fund MirovaAlthelia and provides full impact reporting of their projects and carbon credits to ensure they meet strict environmental, social, and governance standards.
CLIMATE CHANGE
What is Climate Change?
The science is clear: climate change is real and the world must act to mitigate its impact and keep global temperatures within a safe limit.
Climate change is caused by both the loss of our earth’s natural carbon sinks (such as forests that absorb carbon) and the increase of greenhouse gases5 in the atmosphere (produced through the burning of fossil fuels).
The earth is kept at a habitable temperature through a natural process called the greenhouse effect, in which certain gases trap heat within the atmosphere by absorbing thermal infrared radiation and redirecting it towards the surface. Normally, this process traps enough heat in our atmosphere to keep our planet at a temperature that can support life.
But human activity is changing the composition of our atmosphere by releasing higher quantities of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. We do this, amongst other activities, through our energy and transportation systems, through agriculture, including changing the uses of land for grazing and crop production, and through our waste systems.
How do we know Climate Change is real?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an international group of climate scientists who provide recommendations that enable governments to make informed policy decisions.
Through the work of the IPCC, consensus has been reached that:
- Climate change is real
- The concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere is rising rapidly
- Global average temperatures are rising and have increased by about 1°C from preindustrial levels
- Human actions are influencing the climate
Target market and integration example
Our initial focus is the retail space, after which we will be expanding to corporates, traders, and governments. Retailers will be able to integrate with our platform through various channels, including their Point-Of-Sale (POS), websites, mobile apps, and more. We will work closely with retail partners to build a user experience that matches their brand image and create an integration that is both simple and modular to ensure an enjoyable user experience that is also scalable.
Consumers are increasingly demanding more ethical products and services.11 Our platform is built from the ground up to support those consumers make environmentally conscious choices by putting a price on carbon and linking it to consumer products. The knowledge of the carbon emissions that each of these products and services carry, combined with the tools to do something about them, will empower consumers to be active participants in the fight against climate change.
The early days of a carbon credit
The carbon credits we will be offering do not readily exist. They need to be created by launching an emission reduction project. This process includes establishing a project (Initiated), validation by accredited organizations (Validated), and verification (Verified) by independent parties. Then, carbon emissions caused by consumer products and services are quantified and disclosed by participating retail partners (Attached). This enables consumers to address their carbon footprint by making eligible purchases during which carbon credits are used to offset these emissions (Retired).
Currently, these processes are almost entirely manual and take place in isolation. We believe that our blockchain solution can streamline this process and provide a platform that will bring all the moving parts together, creating a paradigm shift in carbon markets.
Using our platform, these steps will be linked to the Stellar blockchain, where we will store details related to each of them by processing transactions in project specific accounts, creating a transparent and auditable record of the entire carbon credit lifecycle. Any participating party will be able to look at the history of each carbon credit on the public Stellar blockchain and our platform will be able to show consumers the exact carbon credit they have retired with their purchase.
Stellar blockchain
We have chosen Stellar as our blockchain partner as it is the only platform that offers scalability in line with our values. Compared to the vast majority of other blockchain platforms, Stellar created an architecture that uses far less electricity and offers significant environmental advantages, which is crucial for our purpose. We could not be building Poseidon as part of a climate change solution if our blockchain platform were an excessive carbon emissions contributor.
The following comparison table shows the tremendous environmental impact of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Interestingly, a transaction on the Stellar network not only uses significantly less electricity than both Bitcoin and Ethereum, but also uses only a fraction of the electricity that a VISA transaction requires.
At 866 KWh, every Bitcoin transaction is responsible for about as much carbon emissions as driving 1,673 km while a transaction on the Ethereum network would be like driving 201 km in a small and efficient car.10 And even a much more efficient VISA transaction is equivalent to driving the same car for about 3.3 meters, which is still a noticeable impact. It is incredible to imagine that the Bitcoin
network uses about as much electricity as the entire country of Austria and the Ethereum network about as much as the entire country of Iceland.
With a transaction on the Stellar network only using about 1.79% of the electricity a VISA transaction requires, this results in an environmental impact that is very favourable in comparison. For us at Poseidon, this was the most important factor when we chose our blockchain partner.
From a development perspective, how we would integrate our back-end software with the blockchain we were building our platform on was crucial for us. Stellar shines here as well. It provides integration points that allow smooth interaction between what we call on-chain smart contracts, which sit on the Stellar blockchain, and off-chain smart contracts that are hosted by Poseidon on a secure infrastructure. The protocol is fast and scalable, providing Poseidon with a future-proof environment that will ensure our platform will be able to grow and scalable, providing Poseidon with a future-proof environment that will ensure our platform will be able to satisfy our platform’s growing demand while remaining environmentally friendly.
The main interaction with Stellar’s blockchain is through a RESTful API called Horizon. This allows us to build hundreds of variations of software that sit outside the blockchain to perform complex tasks that satisfy global carbon market requirements. The outcome of these operations, the available amount of carbon credit in a specific emission reduction project for example, is then published to accounts on the Stellar network via a HTTPS request to the Horizon API.
ROADMAP
2017
- Q2
Poseidon Concept born
Blockchain selected as technology platform
Partnerships being conceptualized
Legal partner with blockchain experience signed
Blockchain selected as technology platform
Partnerships being conceptualized
Legal partner with blockchain experience signed
- Q3
Stellar chosen as blockchain platform
Strategic Partners agreements formalized
Switzerland chosen as base
Poseidon Foundation announced to public
- Q4
Details of platform designed
Key advisors join Poseidon team
Architecture reviewed with Stellar
Regulatory challenges in Switzerland
2018
- Q1
Malta chosen as new base
Legal framework finalized
Discussions with prospective clients
First pilot design completed
- Q2
Poseidon Foundation established in Malta
Pilot Platform launches with first Retail Client
1-year Fundraiser launches with first Public Round
First Corporate Client signed up
- Q3
First Government Client signed up
Participation in European Blockchain conferences
Business Summit in Liverpool, England
Poseidon Mobile App v1 Release
- Q4
Participation in Blockchain conferences in Asia and Europe
Onboarding of second Corporate Client
Onboarding of second Government Client
Climate Impact Product Catalog v1 Release
2019
- Q1
Second Public Round of Fundraiser
Poseidon Mobile App v2 Release
Onboarding of additional Clients in Europe
Opening of Poseidon Headquarters in Liverpool
- Q2
Launch of Annual Poseidon Conference in Liverpool
Final Round of Fundraiser
Voluntary Donations capability released
Opening of Global Poseidon Offices
- Q3
Full Poseidon Platform Launch
Climate Impact Product Catalog v2 Release
Poseidon Mobile App v3 Release
Onboarding of first Clients in Asia
- Q4
Poseidon Platform Functionality Release v2
Onboarding of first Clients in North America
Top contributors invited to forest conservation project
Research and Development roadmap announced
2020
- Q1
Climate Impact Product Catalog v3 Release
Poseidon Mobile App v4 Release
Onboarding of additional Clients in Asia
Poseidon Presence at World Economic Forum in Davos
- Q2
Annual Poseidon Conference in Liverpool
Poseidon Platform Functionality Release v3
Onboarding of additional Clients in North America
Research and Development results announced
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Author: Ninsel
Eth Address: 0x0e5c3664ec0d1b4744349168Bc2F14b4f79F1Ca4
