Not long ago, 16-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg almost won a Nobel Prize. Her talk at TEDxStockholm has been viewed almost 4.5 million times. And her message is so simple that even a child can understand it: “Everyone keeps saying climate change is… the most important issue of all, and yet they just carry on like before.”

But why is it so hard for people to change?

We’re all on a treadmill of consumption. We simply don’t behave well unless we have an incentive to do so. We’re constantly asking, “What’s in it for me?”

Like it or not, the best incentive is money. Take plastic shopping bags. England is a country which is often conservative about the environment. But in 2015, the government brought in a tiny bag fee of 5p. That was all it took. In three years, bag consumption fell by 90 per cent, saving almost 55,000 tons of plastic.
What if we could do that for energy consumption? Oil is an environmental and political nightmare. But we love having power at our fingertips. Conservation doesn’t work – it just leads to negativity, fearmongering, and panic. Incentivisation on the other hand, can create positivity and optimism. 

If you want to shift consumer habits, make alternative energy pay – in real money.

Here are three of the top ways companies today are incentivising green energy use: first, energy marketplace; second, credits and certificates; and third, renewable energy investment. 

Many consumers are happy to pay a premium for ethical production – like paying extra for organic. Yet today’s consumers have zero choice: coal, hydroelectric power, nuclear, or any other energy source. A marketplace ecosystem would let consumers pay extra for renewable energy – an ethical incentive, rather than a monetary one – opening up a whole new world of energy choice.

How can consumers know the energy they’re buying is truly renewable? Through hardware and software that verifies the authenticity of green energy sources, and through credits for renewable-energy production and certificates of green energy authenticity. 

Greeneum is leading the pack here as well with its unique Proof-of-Energy (PET) transaction system. The Proof of Green (PoG) protocol lets Greeneum manage and process energy data that profiles and validates green energy production. Greeneum’s Solar PETs provide end users with absolute confidence in their green energy source.

At its core, simplifying and incentivising renewable energy depends on one thing: a growing renewable energy supply to meet increased demand. But when it comes to getting the infrastructure built, developers need cash on the table.

Fortunately, a few companies are incentivising renewables investment and building green power infrastructure. And yes, this is another field in which Greeneum is making waves with its Green token for carbon credits and certification of green production. 

Using the smart contracts functionality of the Ethereum platform, Greeneum also automates energy transactions, eliminating the inefficiencies of third-party intermediaries. 

By offering a marketplace, certification, and investment opportunities in renewable energy, Greeneum is actually addressing all the pain points of the energy sector – and more.

The entire Greeneum network runs on the Green token, the primary currency of the system’s marketplace. Tokens can be directly traded with other members for energy, or spent on renewable-energy products and services, cutting out power company monopolies and decentralizing the energy sector. Investors profit from micro-fees charged per transaction. Green tokens can be bought and sold on exchanges just like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies.

Green is the incentive the energy system needs to spur consumers to action. Members can also use Green to buy utilities, investments, and other products in the Green Marketplace, creating a robust green energy trading ecosystem. Eliminating intermediaries and building in efficiency offers even more cost savings for all members. 

The product of years of study of the energy sector

Finally, in a world where data is often more valuable than cash, Greeneum’s ecosystem will mine transaction data and use machine learning to predict energy demand, saving money and making power management more efficient.

It all comes back to incentives. Greeneum is the product of years of study of the energy sector, addressing historical inefficiencies and restoring the balance of power to consumers and investors. 

Through incentives to reward users and cost-efficient microgrids with the Green token and P2P energy trading, Greeneum makes it easy to say yes to renewable energy – bringing us that much closer to a world which functions on clean, renewable energy.

The magic of incentives, it turns out, isn’t really magic at all, but old-fashioned values like free markets, trade, and competition. Investing in green energy technology makes money by doing good, in a way that will make Greta Thunberg and her entire generation proud.