Polygon Network Reaches First Sustainability Milestone By Achieving Carbon Neutrality

Polygon, the leading Ethereum scaling platform onboarding millions to Web3, announced its network has reached carbon neutrality on its road to becoming carbon negative by permanently retiring $400,000 in carbon credits to offset 104,794 tonnes of greenhouse gasses emitted since the inception of its blockchain. The milestone comes after Polygon in mid-April released its Green Manifesto, part of its broader vision for sustainable development. The platform has pledged $20 million for a series of community initiatives aimed at utilizing Web3 to create a more sustainable future for all, including new solutions for on-chain carbon credit retirement.

Polygon reached carbon neutrality by partnering with KlimaDAO, a decentralized collective of environmentalists, developers, and entrepreneurs that is widely recognized as a pioneer in the nascent, on-chain carbon market. KlimaDAO has brought transparency and accessibility to the otherwise opaque voluntary credit markets. In helping to implement the first phase of Polygon’s long-term commitment to sustainability, KlimaDAO, in partnership with Offsetra, analyzed the network’s energy footprint to identify emissions hotspots and develop an effective mitigation strategy. The scope of analysis covered emissions from staking node hardware, energy consumption of staking operations, and contracts directly interacting with Ethereum mainnet. Polygon also works with the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI) to audit its carbon footprint.

Polygon then purchased $400,000 worth of tokenized credits via the on-chain carbon market and retired them using KlimaDAO’s offset aggregator tool. All BCT and MCO2 tokenized credits were created from offsets certified under the Verified Carbon Standard, one of many independent standards endorsed by the International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance (ICROA), a key industry body setting best practices and ensuring environmental integrity within the voluntary carbon market.

“We are very excited to be partnering with our home chain Polygon,” stated KlimaDAO spokesperson Archimedes. “It’s absolutely paramount that we continue to work together to advance the on-chain carbon market and establish KlimaDAO and Polygon as the leading innovators in this space.”

Blockchain technology makes carbon offsetting uniquely powerful, as carbon credits in any volume can be retired with complete transparency. Entities can purchase carbon offsets, view real time market data, and accelerate the delivery of financing to high-impact carbon projects around the world. By offsetting the historical emissions of the whole network, Polygon has ensured that every transaction – whether the minting of an NFT or a DeFi trade – is accounted for and its environmental impact is offset.

“Our world is facing an environmental crisis, and the blockchain industry must do far more than promise to stop adding to the problem.” said Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon. “Reaching carbon neutrality is an important first step, but there is more work ahead. Polygon will lead the way as the whole industry moves toward becoming a net positive for the environment.”