Gevo has signed a development agreement with Blocksize Capital, a leading distributed ledger technology (DLT, commonly referred to as Blockchain) company based in Germany.

Originally developed as an underlying branch of the blockchain technology, DLT is an immutable tool that allows tracking of data with a product and the transactions associated with the product. Gevo and Blocksize discovered that it is possible to attach the key metrics for sustainability to gallons of fuel, and therefore enable a “sustainability” assurance. The data associated with certain key metrics for measuring sustainability are suitable for being digitized through blockchain and could lead to tokenization or those attributes.

For years, we have been tracking the sustainability of the farms, and their farming practices, that supply products to our facilities, and we need to continue to do so as we expand. We also track the amount and type of energy used in the production of our products. An end user who buys fuel should be able to simply access the data and know where those gallons originated and what the sustainability profile looks like.

One of the key principles of sustainability is to ‘measure, then improve’. DLT will enable us to sort out what truly is valuable in the end market, assigning the correct value to it, and then set up market mechanisms to share value upstream in the value chain. We want to create a system that rewards the value chain for improving its sustainability. Done right, we should be able to bring some of that value back to the farmer creating rewards for managing sustainability in agriculture.

Obviously we’ll target our ethanol, isobutanol, isooctane, and jet fuel first, but this type of tokenization system could be applied to protein and feed, as well as chemicals, and food production too. It isn’t lost on us that this type of Blockchain technology has enormous potential beyond Gevo and its business system. A DLT-based system like the one we are developing with Blocksize is suitable for any type of business that needs to track sustainability attributes using agriculture or forestry to generate raw materials for the production of food, chemicals, feed, and fuels.

—Patrick Gruber, Chief Executive Officer of Gevo

Gevo is a next-generation “low-carbon” fuel company focused on the development and commercialization of renewable alternatives to petroleum-based products. Gevo is focused on the development and production of mainstream fuels such as gasoline and jet fuel using renewable feedstocks that have the potential to lower greenhouse gas emissions at a meaningful scale and enhance agricultural production, including food and other related products.

In addition to serving the low-carbon fuel markets, through Gevo’s technology, Gevo can also serve markets for the production of chemical intermediate products for solvents, plastics, and building block chemicals.