Mattereum and Z/Yen are pleased to announce a joint research and implementation project, the "Black Standard Carbon" project. Black Standard Carbon aims to provide certainty about carbon offsets internationally. Black Standard Carbon will provide offsets by giving consumers and businesses the ability to purchase carbon allowances and retire them from systems that meet the standards of the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) or the UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS). Black Standard Carbon will provide customers with a Mattereum Asset Passport containing the legal and smart contracts which define, store, and execute the allowances, certificates of authenticity, dispute resolution agreements, insurance frameworks, and other processes around a Black Standard Carbon offset. All Black Standard Carbon transactions will be publicly available for inspection without revealing owners' identities, on Z/Yen's ChainZy distributed ledger (aka blockchain) technology. Customers can purchase offsets that are guaranteed to be part of economically rigorous markets. Customer purchases of carbon allowances should reduce supply and increase the price of carbon in line with the economic goals set out at the 1997 COP3 in Kyoto and subsequent COP summits.

Vinay Gupta, CEO of Mattereum, said, "Carbon markets allow companies to buy or sell greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions allowances. Black Standard Carbon will give the public and smaller businesses easier access to these markets internationally, along with the confidence that their carbon allowances have been authoritatively retired. We admire some services that already provide an EU ETS offset, but our intention is to improve on such services by having better authentication in our asset passport as well as more international coverage."

Black Standard Carbon will begin by offering an EU ETS offset initially, followed by a UK ETS offset. From this starting point Black Standard Carbon will include any ETS meeting international standards, which is likely to include nationally legislated ETSs in Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, and South Korea. There are a number of emerging, pilot ETSs in China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, and elsewhere that could be included relatively rapidly as they mature into nationally legislated status. Black Standard Carbon will then look at regionally legislated ETSs.

Professor Michael Mainelli, Executive Chairman of Z/Yen Group, said, "The idea behind this initiative arose in 2007. Two friends were bragging about the ultra-low prices they were paying for carbon offsets of two respective events. Their prices were outrageously lower than the EU ETS price. I suggested that extraordinarily low prices indicated potential scams, and that if they really cared about saving the planet they should purchase EU ETS allowances and retire them, comfortable in the knowledge that these retired credits really were preventing carbon emissions. I'm pleased that with Mattereum's Asset Passport and ChainZy's internet of record capabilities Black Standard Carbon should be able to offer this service to people around the world interested in preventing emissions today."

Further information:

• Customers will be able to purchase Black Standard Carbon offsets anonymously.
• Customers will be able to transfer Black Standard Carbon offsets to one another.
• Black Standard Carbon intends to offer an easy-to-install Application Programming Interface (API) permitting automatic purchases of offsets relevant to jurisdictions from within a variety of applications.
• Black Standard Carbon will offer voluntary carbon market offsets where it considers them the equivalent standard of nationally legislated ETSs.
• Black Standard Carbon intends to charge no more than a 2% transaction fee.

For more background, read "Cap-and-Trade Versus Carbon Tax: A Comparison & Synthesis”, Michael Mainelli, Alexander Knapp, Jan-Peter Onstwedder, The London Accord (2007).