Specialist crypto ETP provider ETC Group has announced that the BTCetc – ETC Group Physical Bitcoin (BTCE GY), Europe’s largest directly backed bitcoin ETP with $580 million AUM, is going carbon neutral.
ETC Group will purchase carbon offset credits to compensate for BTCE’s associated carbon emissions.
The move comes amid increased awareness of bitcoin’s hefty power consumption with the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance estimating the cryptocurrency’s energy usage to be 121.26 terawatt-hours per year, understood to be on par with a mid-size country.
In a series of tweets, Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently slammed bitcoin mining as a dirty industry and backtracked on plans to allow bitcoin as a means of payment until miners who verify transactions use more renewable energy.
As demand for sustainable investing soars, ETC Group appears to have taken a proactive step in allaying investor concerns related to BTCE’s environmental impact.
Not only will ETC Group offset BTCE’s ongoing carbon footprint on a quarterly basis but the firm will also offset all of the ETP’s bitcoin-related scope 3 emissions since it launched in June 2020.
To compensate for these carbon emissions associated with BTCE’s bitcoin mining and transaction activities, ETC Group will purchase high-quality carbon offset credits that will be used to support carbon sequestration and renewable energy projects identified by offset specialists South Pole.
ETC Group has also announced that it plans to join the Crypto Climate Accord, a group that actively seeks to shift the entire crypto sector towards net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
Bradley Duke, co-founder and CEO of ETC Group, commented: “Companies benefiting from cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are right to take meaningful steps to address climate concerns. We are pleased to see that bitcoin miners are increasingly sourcing renewable electricity, but we at ETC Group feel it’s important to do more and act now. That’s why we have launched our initiative to calculate our bitcoin product’s carbon footprint and offset it with high-quality projects curated and monitored by some of the world’s most respected climate action companies.”
BTCE is available to trade on Xetra, SIX Swiss Exchange, Euronext Paris, Euronext Amsterdam, and Aquis Exchange.
It comes with an expense ratio of 2.00% and was brought to market in collaboration with HANetf which is responsible for marketing and distribution.