Investing in a digital carbon marketplace (Cavex)

Overview

Abstract

Cavex is a cloud-based digital marketplace that will facilitate the collection, verification and monitoring of data on climate positive actions from small projects and facilitate trading through a transparent pricing model. This will enable numerous small, accurately measured projects that wouldn’t have the scale nor resources to go through tailored expert evaluation to participate in carbon credit trading and access climate financing.

In the early phases of this project, FSD Africa provided grant funding to 4RDigital to develop a proof of concept and detailed use cases for Cavex with the aim of improving market infrastructure to facilitate the scaling up of voluntary carbon markets. Following successful concept development, we have provided pre-seed capital to support the build out of the platform and to facilitate a future seed capital raise. The use cases being tested during platform development include a solar powered water pump project in Kenya and a rechargeable batteries project in Senegal. Once built, the Cavex platform will be scalable across different use cases and geographies, including across and  beyond Africa.

Results

  • 6,380,093 tonnes of carbon emissions offset or sequestered
  • 189 platform users able to better adapt to the effects of climate
  • 2,119,210 households able to increase incomes (including savings) through access to the platform
  • Platform scaled to at least 6 countries
  • 127 buyers using the platform for carbon trading
  • £114,479,207 in carbon value traded using the platform
  • 2,119,210 platform users (project contributors) contributing to small scale climate action

Project Details

Project Title

Investing in a digital carbon marketplace (Cavex)

Implementing Partner

4R Digital

Donor(s)

FCDO

Value (in £)

645,102

Implementation Period

2021 - 2025

Countries Covered

Regional. The pilot is currently including projects in Senegal and Kenya, with more being included once the project is rolled out.

Project Description

Cavex is a cloud-based digital marketplace that will facilitate the collection, verification and monitoring of data on climate positive actions from small projects and facilitate trading through a transparent pricing model. This will enable numerous small, accurately measured projects that wouldn’t have the scale nor resources to go through tailored expert evaluation to participate in carbon credit trading and access climate financing.

In the early phases of this project, FSD Africa provided grant funding to 4RDigital to develop a proof of concept and detailed use cases for Cavex with the aim of improving market infrastructure to facilitate the scaling up of voluntary carbon markets. Following successful concept development, we have provided pre-seed capital to support the build out of the platform and to facilitate a future seed capital raise. The use cases being tested during platform development include a solar powered water pump project in Kenya and a rechargeable batteries project in Senegal. Once built, the Cavex platform will be scalable across different use cases and geographies, including across and  beyond Africa.

Target results

  • 6,380,093 tonnes of carbon emissions offset or sequestered
  • 189 platform users able to better adapt to the effects of climate
  • 2,119,210 households able to increase incomes (including savings) through access to the platform
  • Platform scaled to at least 6 countries
  • 127 buyers using the platform for carbon trading
  • £114,479,207 in carbon value traded using the platform
  • 2,119,210 platform users (project contributors) contributing to small scale climate action

Progress

  • Platform under development, with minimum viable product (MVP) expected in early 2023
  • 2 “live” platform users being tested (Kenya and South Africa) and more being onboarded
  • Seed round funding raising for scale-up underway

Updated: March, 2023