Carbon Opportunities Fund Launches First-of-its-Kind Investment Platform to Issue Tokenized Carbon Credits

Washington, DC, August 17, 2022 – The International Finance Corporation, Cultivo, Aspiration, and Chia Network, today announced the launch of the Carbon Opportunities Fund (the Fund), a global investment platform that will raise private capital for an innovative model to source, tokenize and sell high-quality, verified carbon credits.

The Fund will seek to catalyse investments in the voluntary carbon markets and broaden access to finance for nature-based projects certified by leading international standards bodies. This new model for the carbon trading ecosystem will deploy innovative technologies to help identify, monitor, evaluate and natively tokenize verified carbon credits.

"This new partnership will foster the standardization of carbon credits generated in emerging markets and help mitigate climate change," said Paulo de Bolle, Senior Global Director, Financial Institutions Group, IFC. "Nature-based solutions can deliver up to 40% of the carbon removal required to combat the climate crisis. This new framework that will use new blockchain technologies is an innovative way for capital markets to fully engage in carbon credit trading in a transparent, secure, fair, and beneficial manner."

Cultivo and Aspiration, leading originators and investors in nature-based carbon credits, will lead the Fund's strategy and execution. Cultivo's data-driven technologies will identify nature-based projects that recurrently produce high-quality carbon credits. As one of the anchor investors, Aspiration will advise on the selection of carbon credits projects and Fund investments.  As the Fund's carbon credits are tokenized, they will be tracked by the World Bank's Climate Warehouse, which was launched on Chia's public blockchain, as the foundational architecture to build market trust by enhancing transparency and securing the integrity of global carbon trading.

Commenting on the launch of the platform, Dr Manuel Piñuela, Co-Founder and CEO of Cultivo, said, "We are proud to be partnering with the IFC, Chia Network and Aspiration to bring this new platform together. Cultivo's proprietary technology and data-driven selection process enables us to select high-quality nature-based projects that meet the high benchmarks necessary for the tokens. The platform will also provide an important source of sustainable income for local communities in emerging markets to protect and regenerate vital ecosystems that are essential for the communities and our planet's health."

Andrei Cherny, Co-Founder and CEO of Aspiration, further noted, "Aspiration is excited to be the first anchor investor of this IFC platform to scale the voluntary carbon markets. We look forward to contributing the insight we have from the significant global investments we have made into carbon credits projects around the world to advise and guide this institutional-quality platform to accelerate near-term, scalable investments into nature-based solutions that can meet the growing demands of large corporate and government buyers."

"This platform is a critical collaborative effort to address the Climate Crisis, one of the most consequential issues facing the world today. IFC is driving meaningful innovation in sustainable carbon finance, and we firmly stand in support," said Gene Hoffman, Chia Network Chief Operating Officer. "The Chia technology demonstrates the value of blockchain infrastructure for real-world financial markets instruments, only made possible through a sustainable, secure, and compliant public blockchain network."

About the International Finance Corporation (IFC)
IFC—a member of the World Bank Group—is the largest global development institution focused on the private sector in emerging markets. We work in more than 100 countries, using our capital, expertise, and influence to create markets and opportunities in developing countries. In fiscal year 2021, IFC committed a record $31.5 billion to private companies and financial institutions in developing countries, leveraging the power of the private sector to end extreme poverty and boost shared prosperity as economies grapple with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For more information, visit http://www.ifc.org.
 
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About Aspiration
Aspiration is a certified B-Corp and leading sustainability-as-a-service platform that helps individuals, businesses, and governments scale and automate sustainable impact. Aspiration has earned the trust of its more than 7 million members by helping them spend, save, shop, and invest in both "Do Well" and "Do Good" and has partnered with dozens of private and public organizations to originate high-quality carbon credits that meet science-based carbon reduction commitments through investments in scalable, high-quality, nature-based solutions around the world. For more information, visit Aspiration.com or Aspiration.com/business.
 
About Cultivo
Cultivo is a climate-focused fintech company whose mission is to accelerate investment into nature at scale. Cultivo uniquely blends technology, investment, environmental science and boots-on-the-ground capabilities together under one roof to build and manage portfolios of premium natural capital. Cultivo provides institutional-grade products to financial institutions and corporations wanting to invest in natural capital, and partners with NGOs, landowners, project developers and experts to do so. Cultivo is a Public Benefit Corporation headquartered in the United States with operations in Mexico, UK and Europe. For more information, visit https://cultivo.land.
 
About Chia Network
Chia Network built a better blockchain to drive real-world use and application. Founded by Bram Cohen, inventor of BitTorrent, Chia provides a secure, sustainable and regulatory compliant blockchain setting the standard for the infrastructure of digital currency and inclusive access to global, decentralized finance. Through the innovative Proof of Space and Time consensus algorithm, Chia Network's public, open source blockchain leverages hard drive space to create the first new Nakamoto Consensus since Bitcoin in 2009. For more information, visit: https://chia.net/