Making international trade sustainable
We build software tools to make international trade more accessible & sustainable for SME businesses
More info Visit 121 ExportWhat does international trade look like today?
It can be much more sustainable
Shipping accounted for 2% of global energy-related CO2e emissions in 2022. By 2050, it’s expected to rise by ~30% to 1Gt CO2e. This rise will occur, even with the introduction of new carbon mitigation technologies.
35% of trade transactions involve SMEs
Small & Medium Enterprises make up a huge portion of global import/exports, but don’t receive proportional attention from sustainability initiatives.
SMEs face intense price competition
SME exporters face intense price competition from the international market. A small price increase can make the difference between winning and losing a contract. Price is existential for SME exporters.
Green-premium transport options are cost prohibitive for most SMEs
For most import/export transactions, a more sustainable alternative exists, but SMEs are unable to choose them due to expensive green premiums.
80% of trade transactions are underwritten by trade finance
Around 200mn transactions per year are insured or otherwise facilitated by trade-finance. These finance instruments are used to de-risk trade, and provide liquidity to imports and exporters.
Trade finance and insurance companies want to provide green finance
Finance & insurance discounts are available for sustainable outcomes. But there’s no good way to measure the sustainability of a trade transaction at the scale required by trade-finance providers.
An opportunity exists
We can make all parties to a trade transaction better off, improve the sustainability of the trade transaction, and do so without making anyone worse off.
How do we fix it?
Standardised measurement system, ready for adoption
We’re building a mechanism to measure the sustainability of a trade transaction.
Our technique is built atop standardised frameworks, ready for adoption by the largest trade-finance providers and shipping companies.
Human readable at a glance
We think it’s important our assessments can be read by humans. They’re simple red/amber/green results, with actionable insights for the reader.
Finance professionals can quickly assess portfolio sustainability. Exporters can quickly find actionable insights to improve sustainability. Importers can compare the sustainability of potential export partners.
All at a glance.
Digitised for scale
For these measurements to work at the 200mn-per-year scale required, the results are machine-readable and available through secure APIs.
Grounded in open & public information
We use public data sources. Each measurement comes with an audit trail, references for datasets consumed, and sources for all methodologies. We’re committed to transparency, and open-source a lot of our underlying technology.