25 million pounds of plastic collected from the ocean has been converted into certified offset credits for sale during Circularity 22
Companies and municipalities looking to offset their plastic usage can purchase certified plastic credits as part of a broader program administered by Oceans Integrity (RIO) and DevvESG
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., May 18, 2022 — DevvESG, a leading ESG software platform provider, and Oceans Integrity, a global leader in the collection of marine plastic waste, today announced the availability of 25 million pounds (11 million kilograms) of plastic offset credits for purchase in conjunction with Circularity 22, an annual event highlighting the circular economy. Plastic credits allow participating organizations to compensate for their plastic usage (“plastic footprint”) by purchasing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) representing the verifiable removal of plastics from the environment. Plastic credits are a critical element of a holistic strategy to reduce plastics usage, which includes the elimination of unnecessary plastic, an increase in the use of recycled plastic, and the adoption of alternative materials. Credits will be available for purchase on the GlassBlock NFT marketplace at www.GlassBlock.io.
The program is designed to cover the entirety of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) spectrum through the inclusion of three complementary elements: environmental cleanup, living wages for workers, and unparalleled data transparency with strict oversight from independent agencies. Given the recent acceleration of the industry-wide problem of “greenwashing”—knowingly disseminating false information to portray an environmentally responsible image—it is vital that any ESG program uphold the highest standards of accountability to stakeholders and the public.
The plastic credit program is organized around three phases: collection, tracking, and trading. The collection stage is spearheaded by Oceans Integrity, a recognized pioneer in marine sustainability, whose proprietary technologies are used to collect, receive, categorize, serialize, and store plastic materials harvested from oceans and rivers—more than several hundred tons of material per week. Data gathered during the collection process includes weight, point of origin, material type, condition, carrier, photographic representation, and unique serial numbers for individual batches or bales. Collection activities are overseen by the Blue Ocean Program, which is independently audited by Ocean Stop, and are also subject to a variety of local government regulations (e.g., AMDAL).
The actual work of collection is performed by local residents who live in the communities most affected by the proliferation of ocean-bound plastic waste. These collection teams—typically comprised of professional fishermen—are concentrated in “hotspot” regions of South America, Africa, and Asia, where the plastic pollution problem is most acute. Ocean’s Integrity employs up to 10,500 collectors across these hotspot regions at any given time, with a collection capacity of up to 20 million pounds of plastic per month. In addition to paying a living wage, Ocean’s Integrity also contributes to affected communities via educational programs and donation initiatives offering supplies to local schools.
Once collection is complete, the next stage centers around ensuring data traceability and fidelity. This is accomplished by leveraging DevvESG’s enterprise ESG software platform—powered by the DevvX blockchain framework—to guarantee that the information tied to each plastic bale is captured on an immutable ledger, transforming captured plastics into legitimate assets. NFTs representing the value of these assets are generated and issued by the DevvESG platform. The captured plastic itself is ultimately recycled or converted into building aggregate.
The trading stage begins when participant organizations receive a comprehensive evaluation of their plastic footprint and, depending on their results, make a decision to either buy or sell plastic offset credits as part of their overall plastic abatement strategy.
“We are positioned at the forefront of ocean sustainability, and it’s critical that any solution we use to track and validate our plastics collection data be transparent, immutable, and scalable, while maintaining the highest possible standards of security,” said Kieran Kelly, Chief Executive Officer of Oceans Integrity. “The DevvESG software product, backed by Devvio’s ISO-compliant green blockchain platform, DevvX, ensures that RIO’s data can be relied upon as the basis of a revolutionary class of plastic offsets in the marketplace.”
“We are proud to partner with RIO, a worldwide leader in ocean sustainability,” said Mike DiPetrillo, General Manager of DevvESG. “RIO’s established infrastructure for collecting ocean-bound plastic and capturing its relevant data enables DevvESG to offer our clients high-quality, verifiable plastic offset credits as a strategy to improve their ESG performance. These credits are tied directly to improving the lives of indigenous people living in impacted regions, providing a living wage while mitigating environmental damage. Providing these best-in-class ESG assets to our customers is a critical component of our AIR methodology—Analyze, Improve and Report.”
Devvio’s DevvX blockchain, labeled by Forbes as the fastest and most scalable in existence at over 8 million transactions per second, is based on over 5 years of R&D and has been deployed in a number of real-world enterprise systems. It offers immutability, privacy, Byzantine Fault Tolerance, theft and loss protections, and a RESTful API interface for straightforward integration into existing applications. The only ISO-compliant green blockchain in existence, DevvX would consume 3.5 billion times less energy than Bitcoin during the execution of similar operations.
Availability
Plastic offset credits will be listed on the GlassBlock NFT marketplace at www.GlassBlock.io starting in June. For more information, please email info@DevvESG.com or schedule a meeting with DevvESG during Circularity by visiting www.DevvESG.com/Circularity.
About DevvESG
DevvESG creates software products that reduce risk by bringing trust, transparency and simplicity to the ESG space. Using a guided methodology known as AIR, our products help organizations and municipalities navigate three distinct stages in their ESG journey—Analyze, Improve and Report (AIR)—with an easy-to-use interface that removes the guesswork and complexity from every step. Calculate your current risk profile including your carbon footprint and ESG score in the Analyze phase, connect to groundbreaking projects and directly purchase high-quality offset credits in the Improve phase, and fulfill mandatory disclosure requirements in the Report phase, with complete data security and provenance guaranteed by the only ISO-compliant green blockchain in existence. The result? A better baseline analysis of your current ESG performance, better guidance on how to make improvements, better tools to share progress with key stakeholders, and better access to authenticated datasets for companies, cities, investors, regulators, third-party ratings providers, and more—all backed by the world’s first open platform and verifiable source of truth for ESG data and tokens. Get serious about ESG at www.DevvESG.com.
About Oceans Integrity
Oceans Integrity (RIO) was created to address the significant challenges of plastic waste that plague the oceans and waterways around the US and worldwide. RIO’s primary mission is to mitigate the amount of plastic that is going into the oceans and work to greatly reduce the plastic waste that is already collected in the world’s oceans. RIO has a vision for more than cleaning our oceans; by partnering with people all over the world, we clean the world’s waters while stimulating local economies, revitalizing crucial industries, providing valuable jobs, improving waste management, and stimulating applicable education. RIO works with dedicated equipment and local communities in the rivers, the oceans and on land.
About Devvio
Devvio is a leading provider of large-scale enterprise blockchain solutions for ESG, NFTs, payments, supply chain, IoT, workplace safety, identity, and asset/records management. Leveraging the world's first and only ISO-compliant green blockchain, Devvio's next-generation platform delivers over 8 million transactions per second while remaining flexible, cost-effective, regulatory compliant, private, secure, auditable, and globally scalable, with a RESTful API interface that makes integration simple. By delivering groundbreaking solutions for enterprise while furthering humanitarian goals, Devvio is on a mission to provide the world's trusted source of ESG truth and to enable the world's infrastructure for transferring value. For more information, please visit www.Devv.io and www.DevvESG.com.
Media Contact
Mark Hazlin, Xenophon Strategies, mhazlin@xenophonstrategies.com, (202) 289-4001.
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