Companies love to tout their eco-friendly efforts but as Climate Week NYC looms on the horizon, a new project is using technology to separate sustainability fact from fiction.
Public benefit corporation Noble Profit has been developing BFLO, a blockchain solution designed to “report, track and verify sustainability claims,” the company said in a statement. BFLO will “bring needed transparency to global markets and accountability to the $23 trillion currently moving into socially responsible investing strategies,” Noble Profit added.
Amy Seidman, who founded Noble Profit and created BFLO, said, “We’re at a tipping point where, according to UBS, $1 out of $4 under wealth management are being divested into [environmental, social and governance causes, ESGs].”
Despite so much money being funneled into ESGs that theoretically aid the planet and society, “investors still face an enormous challenge due to the opacity of the companies and funds claiming to be sustainable,” she added.
A system like BFLO can help investors better understand the companies whose activities are destroying the Amazon, sullying the oceans and other vital waterways, and “allowing slavery in their supply chain,” Noble Profit said.
According to the B Corp., blockchain is well suited for creating supply chain transparency as it offers an “indelible digital fingerprint to independently verify sustainability claims” as well as near tamper-proof security. Noble Profit claims BFLO helps companies manage documents from auditors, vendors and certifiers, and gives users a way to verify progress on their sustainable development goals (SDGs).
Describing a “wakeup call” that’s prompting change around the world, Seidman added, “Global leaders starting with Costa Rica, France and Germany are stewarding climate solutions. And we are starting to see real action by U.S. companies like IBM, Dell, Walmart and others, under the leadership of organizations like the Business Roundtable and their #EmbracingSustainability campaign.”
Noble Profit points to Indigenous Designs as one example of an apparel brand engaging in fair trade and producing clothing made with organic fibers. The fashion brand’s “robust SDG use case” is roughly equivalent to the ESG score earned by the likes of Nordstrom, Noble Profit added.
Noble Profit invited financiers, companies and select other stakeholders to join BFLO lab to test how the blockchain can track “data and actions around SDGs and ESGs.”