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Blockchain platform MineHub has introduced a new solution that will enable its users to certify and report ESG credentials such as direct and indirect carbon emissions for the products they sell, buy and finance.

Launched in 2019, the MineHub platform focuses on trade operations and document flows between metals and mining companies. It allows parties involved in selling, buying, delivering and paying for a cargo of minerals to collaborate securely in real time, sharing electronic information rather than couriering or emailing documents that are subject to interception, fraud and cyber threats.

Using the MineHub ESG solution, which is now live, metals and mining companies can now capture and administer the ESG credentials of their brands and products, request and record third-party certification of this information, and then have this certified data automatically included into the transaction datasets related to the sale, purchase or financing of their products.

This comes amid increased regulatory pressure on corporations globally to disclose – and prove – their ESG performance. This requirement is increasingly tied to the cost of capital, access to trade finance, brand equity and sometimes even license to operate.

In a statement, MineHub gives the example of an automotive company in Europe. “They are expected to have a sustainable brand promise and be able to back it up with evidence of their ESG performance including the carbon intensity of materials that are used in the manufacturing of the vehicle,” the company says. “The provenance information of the materials is expected to be complete and cover every step and every party involved in the supply chain – from the initial extraction of raw materials in often remote mines, to the smelting, to the manufacturing and into the final assembly.”

“Disclosing direct emissions is not sufficient anymore, especially in mining and metals supply chains where companies are also expected to track and report the emissions from their suppliers and customers – the scope three emissions of their value chain”, adds MineHub.

Material provenance and scope 3 emissions tracking are difficult and expensive problems to solve, and they require a shared data system across the supply chain participants. MineHub says its solution is designed to provide just that, enabling the parties to a transaction to share a single source of truth, including relevant operational information as well as ESG-related information such as emissions and material provenance.

“A mining company can have multiple products, each with their own carbon emissions footprint. We enable companies to attach their ESG credentials at the brand, product and transaction level and have those independently verified by third parties. This gives companies the ability to automate the reporting of their ESG credentials in real time, so the buyer or financier can ensure compliance with their purchasing or credit policies,” Arnoud Star Busmann, CEO of MineHub, tells GTR.

This development comes amid wider industry efforts to drive the adoption of ESG scoring criteria, tools and methodologies. Last month, trade data and analytics provider Coriolis Technologies along with a group of 25 organisations – including MineHub – formed a consortium to develop and implement an ESG monitoring and passporting tool for global trade flows to enable trade financiers and exporters to track and proving compliance with sustainability standards.

The MineHub ESG solution forms part of these efforts, explains Star Busmann. “It’s bottom-up ESG data at the transaction level, so it enables companies to look at their scope 3 emissions on almost a daily basis, and then align their commercial, operational and investment decisions with regards to their portfolio of customers, suppliers, service and logistics providers with their decarbonisation goals. For instance, which vessel, which fuel and what route the vessel should take. All of these are decisions they can start making on the basis of the data captured through the MineHub ESG solution as part of their normal trade operations.”

MineHub says it is now integrating with other partners to further increase the breadth and depth of ESG-related data and certifications that users want to provide or need to verify.