The invitation letter recently sent to Brazil for the country's entry into the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) calls for changes in the decarbonization agenda not only for the Jair Bolsonaro government, as the Brazilian press has been reporting. According to Carlos Mathias Martins Jr., CEO of BlockC, the concrete prospect of joining the organization also forces companies in the country to accelerate efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The executive also highlights that this process affects sectors of the Brazilian economy unequally, and demands from governments, international agencies and legislators a systemic view of the value chains of each company or economic sector, so that the costs of reducing emissions are properly shared between companies, consumers and the government.
“Brazil's entry into the OECD puts much more pressure on companies' decarbonization agenda. These multilateral commitments generate very positive trade returns, which is excellent from a market perspective. However, it is necessary to be clear that the 38 member countries of the organization will also be looking at the commitments of private companies in our country in terms of reducing emissions and combating deforestation”, says Mathias.
Formed in 1948 to administer American and Canadian aid under the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II, the so-called Organization for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC) provided the basis for the creation of a free trade area. trade on the old continent. After the Treaties of Rome in 1957, which created the European Economic Community, the OECD officially replaced the OEEC, expanding its radius of economic integration with the entry, in the following years, of countries such as Japan, Australia and New Zealand. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the OECD began to help Central European countries to join the market economy, in addition to opening space for Latin American and Asian countries. As a result, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Mexico and South Korea became OECD members between 1994 and 2000, and more recently, Colombia and Costa Rica.
In the invitation letter sent to Brazil at the end of January, the OECD council demands a clear commitment to the goals of reducing deforestation and actions to prevent the loss of biodiversity. The document highlights the need for public policies in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement, including net zero emission of greenhouse gases by 2050. All made possible by public and private investments destined for government programs and companies committed to the same goals.
However, these goals unequally reach the various sectors of the Brazilian economy, as Carlos Martins, from BlockC, ponders. “Of the 1.5 billion tons of CO2 that Brazil emits every year, around 400 million tons are directly attributable to beef production. But it is not just cattle or protein companies that should be held responsible for these emissions, but mainly those who eat the meat exported by Brazil. This is a deeper debate than just saying that our country has to reduce livestock emissions”, says Martins.
For all these reasons, the executive defends a change of mentality in the debate on CO2 emissions, replacing the search for culprits with a systemic view that distributes the costs of decarbonization, in a fair way, not only among companies in the same value chain, but among the whole society. This approach is made clear and transparent through the decarbonization platform created by BlockC. By backing each carbon credit in transactions registered and validated via blockchain, it allows the inventory of greenhouse gas emissions to incorporate the entire ecosystem of a company, gradually extending the costs to its suppliers, partners and customers.
To learn more visit https://blockc.com.br/plataforma/
