Salesforce Inc. is launching a marketplace for carbon credits that will aggregate offset providers and rating agencies, aiming to reduce confusion about which offerings are legitimate.
Carbon credits, marketed as a way for companies to atone for their emissions by investing in climate-friendly actions like tree planting, are difficult to measure and verify. If companies have access to transparent pricing and multiple third-party ratings for each project, it will encourage them to make more effective investments in offsets, said Patrick Flynn, Salesforce's global head of sustainability. "Because of the controversy, many organizations are cautious about taking action."
There will be about 90 projects available at launch.
When a company, government or individual is responsible for emitting carbon dioxide, a carbon offset is supposed to allow them to remove the same amount of the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere by other means. Scientists have raised doubts about the practice, and several
Still, there is demand for the offsets. The marketplace expands Salesforce's suite of green products. The company currently operates an emission accounting solution, Net Zero Cloud, which will be integrated with the new marketplace, though organizations do not need to be a customer of Net Zero Cloud to use the new feature, Schoen said. Offset quality ratings and prices aren't behind paywalls and can be accessed without an account, which is "first of its kind," Schoen said.
The marketplace will be available in the U.S. next month and internationally in 2023. Salesforce's fees for each transaction on the marketplace will be about 1%, Flynn said.
