“Take the climate crisis as an opportunity… A 130 trillion carbon market will be opened by 2030”

Interview with Steve Glickman, president for international at Aspiration, a US carbon trading company Voluntary carbon trading around the world is growing rapidly

"Every major challenge that threatens humanity can be a business opportunity."

In a recent interview with Maeil Business News, Steve Glickman, president of international affairs at Aspiration (pictured), ordered companies to actively seize business opportunities prior to revitalizing the Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM).

Aspiration is a leading American fintech company that provides financial and sustainable services for carbon neutralization to individuals and businesses. Founded in 2013, it planted more than 130 million trees around the world last year alone, and aims to plant 5 billion trees by 2040, offsetting about 1.7 billion tons of carbon. More than 8 million individual and corporate customers are participating in Aspiration's carbon neutralization projects. Actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom and Robert Downey Jr. were early investors in Aspiration.

"The climate crisis is an opportunity for companies to proactively build assets that can leverage the energy transition, as well as build an environmentally friendly brand that will resonate with global investors and younger consumers," he said. All companies, including those involved, must pay attention to the scale and speed of reducing their global carbon footprint."

Aspiration plants trees in the countries customers want and provides certified 'voluntary carbon credits' through third-party carbon credit certification organizations such as Verra and Golden Standard. Voluntary carbon credits are the buying and selling of carbon reductions as much as individuals, companies, and non-profit organizations voluntarily participate in carbon reduction programs and reduce them. The concept is the same as carbon credit trading, in which companies reduce carbon emissions in accordance with government regulations and buy and sell the reduced carbon emissions, but there is a difference in that it is accompanied by more active participation.

Carbon credits issued by Aspiration can be traded at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) under the World Bank. If a voluntary carbon credit exchange is established in Korea as in London and Singapore, a market will be opened for companies to buy and sell as much as necessary to offset their carbon footprint.

Glickman predicted that the voluntary carbon trading market would grow to $100 billion (about 130.5 trillion won) by 2030. “The voluntary carbon trading market is worth billions of dollars now, but it is more than doubling every year,” he said. 

Aspiration is also operating a 'Plant Your Change (PYC)' program where individual consumers can participate in carbon neutrality. When consumers use their credit or debit cards, they round off their purchases, pay more, and donate the difference to tree planting. In addition, it is linked to the payment system (POS) of the company with which it has a partnership, so that the actions of individual consumers lead to tree planting activities. A typical example is collaboration with the Boston Red Sox of the Major League Baseball (MLB) or the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

Aspiration, which has carried out extensive afforestation projects in Kenya and Madagascar in Africa and Honduras and Brazil in South America, predicted that the Korean Peninsula would also become a land of opportunity for 'global carbon neutralization'. President Glickman, who served as an economic adviser in the former Barack Obama administration, said, "We can also promote a plan to create a 'carbon neutral forest' in North Korea." It can be given, and this can be a way to make inter-Korean relations peaceful."

[Reporter Yoo Jun-ho]

source: https://bit.ly/3i6D3NL