Edinburgh/London, Wednesday 24 April 2024 – Zumo, the B2B digital assets infrastructure prioritising compliance and sustainability, today announces a new strategic partnership with Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute (CCRI), which provides data on the carbon exposure of investments and business activities related to blockchain.

CCRI’s interdisciplinary team has built a multi-year research track record with a specific focus on cryptocurrencies and their environmental impact. The organisation uses the latest data sources as well as methods based on peer-reviewed studies published in leading scientific journals.

CCRI will now provide the data and methodologies to enable Zumo to further develop its Oxygen solution. The first of its kind, Oxygen uses blockchain technology and strategically sourced market instruments, including renewable energy certificates (RECs), to enable financial institutions to measure, mitigate, and report on the carbon footprint of their digital asset activities.

Last year, Zumo helped Jacobi Asset Management to deliver Europe’s first ESG-aligned Bitcoin spot ETF, listed on Euronext Amsterdam. Zumo will now work in partnership with CCRI to help more financial institutions address the carbon footprint of the new wave of Bitcoin ETFs and other financial instruments coming to the global market.

Research from Zumo and CCRI has highlighted that as of March 2024, the annualised carbon footprint of all physically-backed Bitcoin fund products stood at 4487.93 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide (ktCO2)*. To put this into context, this is equivalent to a person flying from London to New York and back over 1.5 million times.

Furthermore, the annualised carbon footprint of the US ETF cohort that went live in January 2024 following approval by the SEC was 2056.86 ktCO2*, meaning this new cohort had captured nearly half (45.8%) of the market share – and correspondingly the carbon footprint – for physically-backed Bitcoin funds within just a couple of months.

Nick Jones, Founder and CEO, Zumo said:

“As providers’ share of crypto holdings increases, so must their responsibility when it comes to ESG considerations. We’re proud to be partnering with CCRI, which is recognised as the gold standard for sustainability data in our sector. Together, we can help responsible financial institutions to embed sustainability at the heart of their digital asset propositions, in line with investors’ growing ESG awareness and new regulations, such as the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which requires companies to report Scope 3 emissions.”

Dr. Christian Stoll, Co-Founder, CCRI added:

“Transparency and data is key to measure and manage environmental impacts linked to financial products. Unfortunately, most funds are still not measuring or reporting on the carbon footprint of their crypto activities. We are happy that Zumo builds on our dataset and leverages our complementary capabilities to provide an end-to-end solution to help financial institutions to understand and mitigate their crypto-related carbon exposure.”

*Figures from Zumo’s research, conducted in partnership with CCRI. Annualised CO2 emissions data based on 7 day average as of 24 March 2024.