The Hashgraph Association, a Swiss-based venture capital, and technology company, has committed $1.5million to the Global Center for Sustainable Digital Finance as a founding member, aiming to drive and fund research at the intersection between sustainability and digital finance.
The Global Center for Sustainable Digital Finance focuses on developing and accelerating research in sustainable digital finance with impact and training students and practitioners to foster innovation on a global scale. The Center brings together academic experts from Stanford University, the University of Zurich (UZH), and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST) in South Korea.
With funding from the Hashgraph Association, the Center plans to expand its efforts to address global challenges in banking, ESG, financial inclusion, and climate finance.
Alongside its funding, the Hashgraph Association also plans to collaborate with the Center to conceptualise and implement projects leveraging its Hedera distributed ledger technology (DLT) platform. The Hashgraph Association will equip 360 students annually with skills in mastering DLT using the Hedera Hashgraph platform, with over 2,160 students to be trained over the duration of the partnership, which is six years.
Kamal Youssefi, president of The Hashgraph Association, also said: “At The Hashgraph Association, we are proud to continue supporting organisations that deliver environmentally sustainable finance solutions in an innovative and compliant way.
“A recent environmental impact study by University College London (UCL) comparing different distributed ledger networks proved that Hedera is the world’s most sustainable network. The Global Center for Sustainable Digital Finance fits perfectly into our Hedera Enablement programme, furthering THA’s efforts to expand research and development in Web3 and support sustainable initiatives.”
Increasing transparency and reliability of information
A recent survey of 37 UNDP country offices revealed that sustainable digital finance is a priority for many nations, yet only 40 per cent have a digital finance strategy. The Hashgraph Association’s partnership with the Global Center for Sustainable Digital Finance aims to fill this gap by bridging digital finance and sustainability through innovative, education, impactful research and implementation.
Thomas Puschmann, founder and executive director of the Global Center for Sustainable Digital Finance, states: “Sustainable digital finance has the potential to build inclusive, safe digital foundations, and technologies such as DLT, AI, and IoT, helping to increase transparency and reliability of information, especially in the climate financing domain. These foundations also aid in tackling corruption issues when funding Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) projects.”
The Hashgraph Association launched a $50million Sustainability Venture Studio for enterprises earlier this year and has also partnered with Deloitte to enhance the verification of corporate ESG impact, reporting, and sustainability claims, leveraging the Hedera Guardian.
