CYNK has made its debut in Kenya’s capital Nairobi with the forward trade of more than 2 million carbon credits, marking a milestone as Africa’s first end-to-end platform for measuring, verifying, and selling high-quality verifiable emissions reductions.
The credits sold come from the Tamu Group, Kenya’s largest biomass company, founded seven years ago by Nils Razmilovic, who also serves as CYNK’s chairman and founder.
Tamu Group specializes in producing biomass briquettes using waste generated by sugar milling operations in Kenya.
Each carbon credit available on CYNK is equivalent to the prevention of one ton of carbon emissions, which would have been released if the sugar milling waste had been left untreated.
CYNK’s CEO, Sudhu Arumugam, highlighted the significance of this trade as a sign of restoration of trust in the high-quality segment of the voluntary carbon markets, showcasing the potential for climate projects and nations in the Global South to capitalize on this rapidly expanding asset class.
The platform distinguishes itself by leveraging blockchain technology to enable direct interactions between climate projects in the Global South and investors and buyers in the Global North.
This decentralized marketplace aims to eliminate middlemen who often claim significant commissions or engage in double-selling of credits.
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When announcing the transaction, CYNK emphasized that projects traded on the platform will be monitored “both from a carbon and social impact perspective” in order to ensure the continued viability of the credit.
“What we are doing is extremely ambitious. We are not sitting in an office in London or San Francisco creating technology we think might help,” Razmilovic said in an interview for Energy Monitor. “We are covering the entire value chain, from the project and its social impact to the data collection necessary to effectively trade carbon credits.”
CYNK did not disclose the names of the buyers of first 2 million carbon credits traded on the platform or any further transaction details.
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