NEAR Protocol partners with ESG DAO to support creation of 'OpenESG,' an open ESG scoring system

ESG DAO was created to bridge the gap between the current ESG rating systems that measure risks to a company from ESG factors, but do not reflect the company’s true impact on Planet, People, and Societies.

Zug, Switzerland: ESG DAO, the United Kingdom entity that is building a global, decentralised and real-time Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) rating protocol, has partnered with NEAR Protocol to accelerate the development of OpenESG.

NEAR is a leading carbon-neutral layer 1 blockchain platform that has partnered with a number of climate organisations and incubated several startups such as Open Forest Protocol, Raiz Farms, and BeeTogether to help address some of the world’s most important environmental problems.

ESG DAO will develop and deploy OpenESG Protocol’s solutions on the NEAR blockchain. One of the first deployments, running on Astro, will be ESG DAO’s multi-stakeholder “ESG Expert DAO Council” that will provide the intellectual and ethical guidance to define and maintain the world’s first independent open, democratic, and credibly neutral set of ESG ratings.

“We are thrilled to support ESG DAO’s mission to build a global, decentralised, and real-time Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) rating protocol which will become a foundational primitive for the nascent Regenerative Finance (ReFi) ecosystem,” said Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation.

“We recognise the importance of shaping a more equitable, and sustainable world, supporting pioneering better crypto economic designs that foster positive business behaviour. This is an exciting project that aligns with our values and will help promote a better and more sustainable future for everyone.”

ESG DAO was created to bridge the gap between the current ESG rating systems that measure risks to a company from ESG factors, but do not reflect the company’s true impact on Planet, People, and Societies.

The OpenESG scoring system changes that by looking at ESG as output metrics, and by making companies’ impacts clear and understandable. OpenESG allows companies of all sizes (from startups to large public companies) from emerging and developed markets, to build environmental and social impact into their business models and make that transparent to consumers and investors.

“We are pleased to partner with NEAR to reinvigorate the ESG movement with a permissionless, transparent, democratic, and credibly neutral ESG scoring system. OpenESG will power a stack of applications and tools capable of nudging customer awareness, engagement, purchasing behaviour and investment decisions towards high-scoring companies,” says David Aikman, Co-Founder and CEO of ESG DAO, about the partnership.

“We’re excited about the potential of Web3 technologies to solve the world’s biggest challenges, including climate change. To do this, we need new incentives and new economic models, which the ReFi community is actively collaborating to develop.”

NEAR and ESG DAO agree that accelerating the emergence of ReFi will enable Good companies to connect with Good people and incentivise businesses to act in the planet’s best interests.

ESG DAO will receive continuous support from NEAR to explore the development of the protocol infrastructure (Rust libraries, APIs, DAO, and tooling) needed for a native OpenESG deployment on NEAR.