Founders Highlight Series: Carbonz

This month’s Founders Highlight Series is on Carbonz’s Founder, Finn Ross.

Carbonz is a developer and seller of carbon and biodiversity credits founded on the basis that carbon credits generally lack transparency, efficacy, and accessibility. Carbonz allows buyers to feel confident with their purchases through a transparent and auditable process, and direct impact to help support biodiversity and native reforestation.

We discuss how the credits at Carbonz work and how their approach to transparency and traceability makes the organisation stand out.

1.Tell us a bit about your background and how Carbonz started up. 

Kia ora, I am a passionate adventurer and naturalist based between New Zealand and Australia. I am from Lake Hawea Station; my family farm which is pioneering farm environmentalism and was the first certified carbon-zero farm in Australasia. I am a Deakin University Ph.D. candidate investigating seaweed as a natural climate solution. I have been involved in several ventures as the co-founder of the not-for-profit charity Let Them Fish, a contributor to the founding of Live Ocean, CEO of Bomb Bucha, and Co-Chair of Future Farmers New Zealand. 

My experience in entrepreneurialism and environmentalism has culminated in the founding of Carbonz. Carbonz was born as we identified five key things; 

1. There is no incentive or reward for restoring native forests in New Zealand outside small-scale philanthropy. 

2. Voluntary carbon credits aren’t investable or accessible to everyday Kiwis.  

3. New Zealand is a large net importer of voluntary carbon credits when there is significant native forest restoration to be done in New Zealand.  

4. Climate change is our greatest challenge and the voluntary carbon credit market is a key tool in our climate change fight, there are many projects that need development and funding

5. Carbon credits lack traceability and transparency. 

2.How does the carbon credit trade work at Carbonz?

Buyers can register via the Carbonz website and go through to choose their carbon credit/ removal. Each carbon removal is for one tonne of CO2 and can be traced back to the exact forest it came from. Buyers then have the option to hang on to their credit to use to mitigate their emissions or sell later as an investment. 

3.What makes it stand out from other carbon credit trading outlets?

Traceability, transparency, and efficacy. 

Traceability - every credit can be tracked back to exactly where it came from.

Transparency - Every credit methodology is easily accessible and we provide as much easily digestible information on our credits as possible. 

Efficacy - We guarantee 80% of funds from each credit purchase goes to the landowner, we are the only exchange that clearly states how much of the carbon credit purchase goes to the project and believe 80% is amongst the highest globally. 

4.Can you please explain the difference between the two credits that you sell and how they maximise restoration efforts when sold in cohesion?

Native CarbonCrop Units (CCUs) are high-integrity voluntary carbon credits, issued exclusively to qualifying native forests not recognised by the Emissions Trading System (ETS). They represent one tonne of CO2 equivalent. They are certified by CarbonCrop which uses satellites and artificial intelligence to assess carbon sequestration from regenerative native bush on NZ farmland to the highest standard. 

Native New Zealand Units (NZU) are regulatory carbon credits, exclusively from native forests that are fully traceable to their exact location. These credits are traded on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The credits are verified by the methodology used by the Ministry for Primary industries (MPI). The Carbonz exchange only sells NZUs if they are native and when we know where they came from (no pine forests), in this way, they align with our values around traceability and co-benefits. 

5.What do you hope for Carbonz to achieve in the next few years as carbon credits grow in demand?

We aim to grow Carbonz to be the go-to developer and registry for impact lead carbon credits and environmental assets in the South Pacific. Carbonz believes there is no such thing as a true carbon offset or a ‘right to pollute’. Businesses, investors, and individuals should measure their emissions, reduce as far and fast as possible, and then they should ‘balance’ their hard-to-abate residual emissions with high-quality carbon removals (credits).

These carbon removals should have the funds going as far as possible towards impact via an incentive payment to sequester carbon. This is consistent with the ultimate goal of a net zero society. 

In addition, where possible businesses should remove more carbon than their hard-to-abate residual emissions to be carbon positive as far as they are reasonably able to. We can not let the fear of emission reduction complacency stop us from funding carbon sequestration. While it is important to avoid ‘greenwashing’, many companies are now spending a huge portion of their sustainability budget on consulting and different levels of verification, (sometimes 80-90%!). We want to see high levels of impact and a balance between making sure funds are going to a highly credible cause, and ensuring all the funds aren’t going to consultants and verification, Carbonz will lead on high efficacy carbon credits.