Gossip About Gossip: The Inner Workings of Hedera’s Governing Council CorpComm

While still a relatively new governing council, the Hedera Corporate Utilization Committee, or CorpComm, is making big strides in the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) arena. Host of Gossip About Gossip, Zenobia Godschalk, discussed this area of opportunity in detail with CorpComm council member and Chief Innovation Officer at DLA Piper, Andy Gastwirth.

Utilizing user and interest groups, the committee discovered an integral issue that was preventing Hedera partners from moving forward. “What we were really missing was that people were presenting use cases, but they didn’t know how to actually engage and get started in building them,” Gastwirth explained. The council realized they could help solve this disconnect through their own industry knowledge and outsourcing additional experts.

For Gastwirth, he enjoys focusing on the issue at hand, which may differ based on the seniority level of the partner. For instance, executive stakeholders aren’t as concerned about the technology, but more so what is the problem and how will the company go about achieving the defined metrics. In fact, often times the council is approached by partners who need advisement or education on blockchain and ESG.

Gastwirth specifically dove into the supply chain and sustainability. As an example, he explained how batteries are comprised of raw materials, and when building a circular economy, it’s important to think bigger: “How do we work with the mining companies to allow them to not only be more profitable in how they’re extracting raw materials, but how are we tracking the raw materials that are being extracted from the ground?” Essentially, this involves a holistic approach, looking at the process and working with all companies essential to that process to reduce waste and hazard while improving efficiency, profitability, and sustainability.

For sustainability targets, organizations need to know:

1. How to monitor the current sustainability situation.
2. How to look at business processes to improve sustainability.
3. What data is being collected/reported on and is accurate and will be accepted to regulatory bodies.
4. How to tokenize carbon credits.

The reason CorpComm is seeing so much traction and success is because of its customized approach to solving solutions — it’s not a one size fits all solution — and they are able to do it at scale and with speed. Gastwirth encourages those who have interest in ESG to visit CorpComm’s website or schedule a consult with dlapiper.com.

KEY POINTS:

1. Hedera’s CorpComm council helps partners reach their ESG goals through advisement and expertise.
2. Achieving ESG goals involves a customized, holistic solution.
3. Minimizing the amount of energy a company consumes or wastes is at the core of sustainability.