A new global payment platform has been launched, which allows communities worldwide to participate in the fight against climate change.
The platform introduces a new digital currency, called the toco, where each unit represents one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent that has been removed from the atmosphere.
It was launched in Stellenbosch recently, and will be made available in the rest of South Africa and globally soon. The founders of Vumatel and Lobster Ink, Niel Schoeman, Johan Pretorius and Paul Rowett, announced the initiative with five main goals.
It aims to accelerate carbon reduction activities, fix the current economic model to place value on the environment, unite a global community with the belief that carbon reduction has intrinsic value, give communities the power to act by bypassing the failing institutions, and create environmental wealth for all by investing in environmental assets.
“We decided to start in our backyard, but the platform is open to everyone. We invite communities everywhere to adopt the currency and join this initiative,” said Schoeman.
“We will lead the way here in South Africa to show the world how we all can agree that removing carbon has intrinsic value and that the simplest way to demonstrate such agreement would be to use carbon removals as a means to base our money on.”
The unit of trade, the toco (short for tonne of OCO, the molecular formula for carbon dioxide) represents one tonne of carbon dioxide that has been credibly removed from the atmosphere.
The carbon dioxide is removed through a wide range of activities including direct carbon capture, reforestation and soil sequestration, to name a few. These carbon removals, when verified by independent accredited third parties, become tradable certificates (also known as carbon credits, carbon offsets or carbon mitigation assets).
It is widely acknowledged that climate change is one of the greatest existential threats to humanity.
“Our governments and institutions are simply not equipped to deal with this,” Pretorius related. “We will need to bypass them and come together as civil society to fix this. We need a solution that gives every person on earth the ability to take climate action and transmit their climate needs.
“We need a global community united behind a single shared value: that carbon reduction is a valuable product for us all, and that anything that creates carbon reduction – whether it is a forest in Brazil or a direct air capture factory in Iceland – is a valuable asset for humanity and the economy, and should therefore be rewarded for that activity. Toco is a means to do just that.”
Rowett, who is driving the Stellenbosch initiative, concluded: “We are getting massive buy-in from businesses in Stellenbosch. They get it, it is money, but reimagined, responsible and digital. Taking care of business suddenly also means taking care of the planet.”
The platform is available to users on the internet, Android and iOS and can be downloaded from the respective app stores. The app is free.
