Climate-tech start-up URECA launches platform for individuals and corporates to invest in carbon credits

Nicole Lim
3-min read

Investors can access developer and credit rating details, sustainable development goals attained, and the methodology adopted.

Singapore-headquartered climate-tech start-up URECA has launched its climate investing platform to allow individuals and corporations to buy, sell and trade carbon credits from key projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The platform is available for web, Android and iOS smartphones, and will connect investors with project developers that are accredited by some of the world’s biggest international carbon offset standard programs, including clean development mechanism (CDM), Gold Standard, Verra and the Spanish registry of carbon footprint by the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) in Spain.

Investors can access specific details of the respective projects on the marketplace, such as the developer details, credit rating details, the sustainable development goals attained and the methodology adopted for each project.

The platform also allows investors to invest in household-level projects which are powered by URECA’s digital measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) standards, through IoT engineering and machine learning to remotely verify carbon offsets. According to the May 5 press release, the URECA system enables individual households and SMEs to transition to clean energy and produce and sell carbon offsets, as it lowers the barriers of entry to investing in carbon credits.

Orchlon Enkhtsetseg, CEO and founder of URECA, says the usage of the technology is to trace each carbon credit and to verify information about each project while ensuring it has not been tampered with. URECA uses Algorand as its blockchain solutions provider.

“The goal is to produce a strong chain of custody for each carbon credit and create a reliable and credible system for all investors,” he says.

According to URECA, the first use of its MRV verification system was with five families from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, where they transitioned from using coal to clean energy in their homes.

Responding to an enquiry about how significant would the contributions from the individual household solar panels be in curbing carbon emissions, Enkhtsetseg says the initiative aims to target 250,000 households, which would amount to 3 million tons of CO2 per year for seven years to be avoided.

The initiative is launched in partnership with Asia Foundation, and would translate to an additional revenue stream of roughly US$2,000 ($2650.15) a year for each family.

Enkhtsetseg says: “We hope URECA’s platform will enable anyone to become a climate investor and play their part in the fight against climate change through carbon financing. What was so far a complex ecosystem mostly accessible to corporations, is now democratised and available to anyone that wants to make a difference. We hope to catalyse a movement and empower grassroots participation by providing unprecedented access to individuals and SMEs to be a part of the carbon market.”

In November 2022, the Mongolian-originated Singapore based company closed a pre-seed funding round from undisclosed investors at US$1.5 million, and announced plans to launch its marketplace in early 2023.

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