SuperRare Historic Emissions Offset - Request for Comment

SuperRare Request for Comment: Historic Emissions Offset

Introduction

KlimaDAO proposes to offset 3,359 tCO2 of on-chain carbon offsets to make SuperRare certified carbon neutral and to amplify SuperRare’s climate impact messages with a dedicated media partnership.

KlimaDAO recommends drawing selective retirement of the Chao’er Forest project based on the price to the value of accessing a nature-based project at a discount. Offsetting the 3,359 tCO2 footprint from this project will cost $6,200 based on current market rates as at Wednesday 26th October 16:00 UTC +2. Which represents 0.0856% of the liquid treasury value.

Motivation

Using Kyle McDonald’s emissions estimates, the Ethereum network has a carbon footprint of roughly ~18.1M tonnes. Now that the merge has taken place, Ethereum’s footprint looking forward is minimal. However, it’s important for the community as a whole to effectively quantify and take action for historical emissions. Doing so is a win for Ethereum, but also helps push investment and ideation into the growing ReFi (regenerative finance) ecosystem.

The good news is that taking action on historic emissions is possible in a web3-native way, thanks to KlimaDAO’s development of DeFi rails for climate finance. The KlimaDAO team has developed expertise and unique technology to make the process of addressing historical emissions achievable for dApps such as SuperRare

Methodology

To measure the carbon emissions of SuperRare we have implemented the comprehensive emissions model developed by Kyle McDonald in the research paper: Ethereum Emissions: A Bottom-up Estimate which maps network energy usage to emissions factors.

We then use carbon.fyi which is a tool that applies this methodology to calculate the emissions of defined contracts based on gas usage within specific blocks.

Scope

Known SuperRare Ethereum contracts with carbon emissions quantified from carbon.fyi calculated on September 25th, 2022 (post merge).

Contract Name Contract Address CO2 (Tonnes)
SuperRareV1 0x41a322b28d0ff354040e2cbc676f0320d8c8850d 218.723
SuperRareV2 0xb932a70a57673d89f4acffbe830e8ed7f75fb9e0 0
SeriesNFTFactory 0x2c325156416cc7b701151daFb6D4c0BDF0d398f0 0
SpacesNFTFactory 0x3B2d699110aa1788B2B1cae336E0bA8ff942A390 3.63
$RARE Token 0xba5bde662c17e2adff1075610382b9b691296350 305.571
SuperRare Mint Allowlist 0xb932a70a57673d89f4acffbe830e8ed7f75fb9e0 1,369.94
MarketplaceSettings 0x33bAC43e4B5aF78fec2283CE719C0D2Eb9E79AEa 8.181
ApprovedTokenRegistry 0x16c9e9Bc7fD73F538e7dFc2eb1A21F429C3e0B8C 0.3
SpaceOperatorRegistry 0xa8752906162B734274f75C2F23C7A00f05D085c0 0.616
RoyaltyRegistry (SR) 0x17B0C8564E53f22364A6C8de6F7ca5CE9BEa4e5D 0.421
RoyaltyEngine (Global) 0xFf5A6F7f36764aAD301B7C9E85A5277614Df5E26 0.875
Payments 0xc033BBef0Af25Db7523FCe16BaB1C39df0bF2Ae3 0.232
CollectorRoyalties 0xb661241653B0174e3d758CeE01e320A1f4BcAeBF 0
SuperRareBazaar 0x6D7c44773C52D396F43c2D511B81aa168E9a7a42 1,447.98
SuperRareMarketplace 0x5e62454d6AA7392925ccd3E7cd33f2D7c2f33D97 1.049
SuperRareAuctionHouse 0xDd867a8Eb1720185B3fdAD7F81Caed4E8132Be19 1.301
Total 3358.811

Alternative Projects

Below are a number of projects of note, KlimaDAO can also help identify additional projects for consideration within tokenized carbon pools (BCT - Base Carbon Tonne, MCO2 - Moss, NCT - Nature Carbon Tonne).

Project name Description Selective Retirement Address
Chao’er (BCT) The Inner Mongolia Chao’er Forest projects the once logging forest. The project is implemented in three forest farms under the jurisdiction of the Project owner, namely Dacongshan Forest Farm, Quansheng Forest Farm, and Taerqi Forest Farm. 0x6362364a37f34d39a1f4993fb595dab4116daf0d
Agrocortex (MCO2) The primary objective of the Agrocortex REDD+ Project is to avoid the unplanned deforestation (AUD) of the 186,219 ha project area, consisting of 100% Amazon rainforest. Over the next 30 years, this project will help reduce over 14 million tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere. NA
Pacajai (NCT) The objective of the Pacajai REDD+ Project is to protect nearly 166,000 hectares of biodiverse forest in the state of Pará in Brazil. The project is both VCS and Climate, Community & Biodiversity certified. 0x65d96f0d45606016e30c97ee039775de9722a7d2
Rimba Raya (NCT) Located in Borneo’s southeast and stretching for almost 100 kilometers from North to South along the borders of the Tanjung Puting National Park, the Rimba Raya Reserve covers around 64,000 hectares. The project area is home to an array of endangered species, including the endangered Bornean Orangutan. Rimba Raya is certified under Verra’s carbon standard as well as its Climate, Community & Biodiversity standard. 0x62896f42cf1371b268db56e50d67c34f3eb1ad7a

Alternative project and costs

Below are two alternatives to give indicative pricing impacts compared to our recommended approach. Selective retirement using Toucan has a 25% fee which is included in the quoted amounts.

Option Project breakdown Price at 11/Oct/22 19:00 UTC+2
1 3,359 tCO2 using BCT pool with selective retirement of Chao’er Forest Project $6,200
2 1,679.5 tCO2 using BCT and NCT pool respectively with selective retirement: Chao’er Forest Project , Pacajai REDD+ or Rimba Raya Project $6,677 ($3,627 (Pacajai REDD+ or Rimba Raya + $3,050 (Chao’er))
3 3,359 tCO2 using NCT pool with selective retirement of Pacajai REDD+ Project or Rimba Raya Project $7,299

Offsetting and trade execution

To offset the tCO2 footprint of SuperRare the Klima Infinity portal can be used which supports selective retirement by project address. A representative of KlimaDAO can demonstrate specifics of how the tool can be used. Note also that tokens on the Polygon (MATIC) network will be required to purchase the offsets via the BCT and NCT pools using SushiSwap.

The offset purchases can also be broken down into separate purchases over time with the communication plan being to achievement of carbon neutrality by 2024 (as an example).

Case Study

As an example of previous partnerships, Polygon worked with KlimaDAO and retired $400,000 of carbon credits representing the entirety of the network’s CO2 debt since inception. Going forward Polygon will continue to build upon its Green Manifesto and become carbon negative.

Achieving carbon neutrality was critical in Polygon securing key partnerships with notable brands including Starbucks and Meta whose mainstream users’ concerns were addressed by the action they took on climate change.

You can take a deeper look at projects that have used KlimaDAO to offset carbon emissions transparently through our pledge dashboard.

Closing

KlimaDAO is looking forward to feedback from the SuperRare community on this proposal and ways that we can partner together on tackling historical emissions. We appreciate Offsetra’s carbon.fyi for their work in developing a methodology for on-chain calculations and the countless stakeholders who have refined it over the past year.

Thank you for your consideration.

I encourage everybody to check out Kyle McDonald’s Amends (done for rarible, foundation and opensea): https://amends.eco/.
There are so many ways to calculate emissions, is there now a consensus on how to do that? A trustworthy source?
PS: Hi KlimaDAO!