Here’s an excerpt from Patch’s trust and safety whitepaper. Click here to read it in full.
Climate change isn’t an engineering problem — it’s a social engineering problem.
Imagine a world where all technological progress on the technologies we’re developing to avoid the emission of greenhouse gasses or remove them from the atmosphere suddenly stopped where it is today. We’d still have all the tools we needed to solve the climate crisis — just not at the scale necessary. Improving our existing methods and inventing new ones will certainly help, but that doesn’t address the underlying issue:
All of us, from governments to citizens to companies, aren’t working fast enough or ambitiously enough.
Participating in the emerging voluntary carbon market can pay off for companies and the climate
One avenue for corporate climate leaders to deploy huge amounts of capital immediately toward effective solutions is the emerging voluntary carbon market. By unleashing the power of market incentives and redirecting them at climate change, this industry has the potential to pay off for the planet — and for business.
This market is in the process of scaling, and a scaling industry is by definition evolving and imperfect. In the case of the voluntary carbon market, both the standards for how to engage and the solutions being financed are rapidly advancing. This continued improvement is a sign of a healthy, growing market.
And as with any scaling industry, but particularly for an industry scaling climate solutions, we cannot wait for perfection. Participating in carbon markets now means investing in developing, testing and ultimately scaling the climate solutions the world will need over the next few decades.
Patch brings together best-in-class criteria from across the market
Even though the voluntary carbon market is young relative to other markets, the ecosystem of international standards is robust. There are many sophisticated organizations with strong foundations in science that provide guardrails for measuring, certifying, and verifying carbon credit projects.
Because of this, there’s no need for Patch to “reinvent the wheel.” Instead, we focus on bringing together the best of what experts from across the field are doing. Our project acceptance criteria represents a curation of leading criteria and the latest science. It offers buyers a comprehensive view of the entire market across technology types, climate objectives, co-benefits, and geographies.
Our process is purpose-built for iteration so that we can always offer the latest science and standards
Science and technology will evolve over time and so too will our project acceptance criteria. Patch’s approach is purpose built to be extremely responsive to changes in the standards and market landscape, enabling us to reflect the current best science in this rapidly-evolving space.
Our deep relationships with project developers and standards bodies keeps us so close to these shifts in the market, we’re regularly ahead of the curve when it comes to updating our project acceptance criteria.
Centralization and human translation are integral to buyer success
Patch was founded as a technology company. Scaling through software is in our DNA. Our technology platform enables us to centralize and openly share the latest project data and documentation.
But in a complex market, this is often not enough. Our experts keep a pulse on the market and translate impacts relevant to our customers. Our goal is for Patch customers to have a sense of stability within the Patch purchase process, even as the market changes around us. Our approach offers a solid baseline, room to iterate and improve as science and standards evolve and, perhaps most importantly, a means to share this progress with our partners as the market continues to grow.
Take a look at this blog to go deeper into what changes we’ve made and why, and get the complete whitepaper for our full project acceptance criteria and trust and safety approach.
