Getting Started
Create your own climate-positive application.
No matter whether you decide to integrate our API or use our widget, this section aims to give you an overview and understanding of how an integration with ClimateTrade works, and how to set it up quickly to start offering climate solutions on your platform of choice.
Integration models
Right now, we offer a simple integration model (stay tuned, more coming soon) called CO2 Balance, where you purchase an amount of carbon credits from the project you prefer, and then you can use the API or Whitelabel to offset and consume those credits. In this model, you will get an official certificate from the project you bought the tCO2 from and then every offset made through the API/Whitelabel will get our blockchain certificate which links to the official certificate from the registry.
This model allows you to offer carbon compensation on the Kg scale to your customers (in direct purchases from the project, the minimum quantity is tons) and, in general, benefit from better prices for higher volumes, maintaining traceability and transparency throughout the process of acquiring carbon credits and compensation
Account setup
The whole process starts by setting up an account, which can be done in 3 simple steps.
- Create user
- Create integration
- Acquire tCO2 for your balance
In order to create a user just register into climatetrade.com (it’s free) and select the option to enable API/Whitelabel. Once you validate your email our team will review your request and once accepted you’re set, ready to start the configuration.
Once you have enabled your user you can access MyClimateTrade, your user area. On MyClimateTrade you will have multiple sections to perform different actions or check different types of data. Now go to “My Integrations” section (if you don’t see it maybe you didn’t select the option to enable API/Whitelabel) and click on the button to create a new integration, give it a name (we recommend something representative of where is going to be used) and click on Create Integration.
Integration created!!! Now you just need to buy some CO2 credits for your balance..if you go to the “My Integrations” section you’ll see an integration created, click on it and you will access the integration page. Go to the section “Buy more projects or top up existing” and follow the instructions to buy some credits, it’s as easy as going to our marketplace, log in, select your preferred project and on checkout select that you want to use the credits you are going to buy for your integration.
Ready to start
Once you have some balance on your integration you will have access to the API Key of such integration.
Go to the integration page, check Whitelabel/API Integration section, and you will see the token that will give you access to our API or Whitelabel. With the API Key you are ready to start configuring our widget or start developing with our API.
Widget configuration
Our Widget is available on e-commerce marketplaces, like WooCommerce, with a very simple configuration.
First, you need to install our Widget or plugin on the e-commerce platform you’re using: you can find it in the plugins marketplace and follow the easy instructions to install it in one click.
Then, it’s time to configure it. The first thing you need to do is to enter the API Key provided in the integration page into the Widget configuration. Then you have to configure the following fields:
- % offset: This is the percentage of the cart’s value that you want to dedicate to offsetting emissions. It depends on the cart typology but it is usually around 1%
- % of payment: This is the percentage of the cart’s value that you will charge the customer for the offsetting service. If you put the same percentage as in “% offset” then the whole amount paid by the customer will be dedicated to the offset, while if you put a higher percentage you will get some benefit on each offsetting transaction. A usual amount would be between 1% and 1.5%
- Image (optional): If you want to use an image in your Widget you can set it up here.
- Title (optional): Title of the Widget. We recommend something short and clear, like “Offset carbon emissions”
- Description (optional): Description or text displayed in the Widget, in more details than the title.
- CTA (Call To Action) It allows three different modes that will define what kind of information is shown in the text calling for action
- Basic: A simple message saying that customer wants to offset footprint
- With kg: Message informing the customer of the amount in kg of CO2 they will offset (kg are calculated based on the % of cart value dedicated to offsetting and the price of carbon credits within the integration)
- With kg and amount: Message informing of the number of kg (same as previously) plus the amount the customer will pay (defined by % of cart value dedicated to payment)
Widget view example
A Widget in a e-commerce that has been configured with 1% offset and 1.5% payment, showing both kg and amount, and with carbon credits bought at €12/tCO2, would show, for a cart valued at €60:
Offset 50 kg of my emissions for €0.90
Api development
In order to start an API development, the first thing you need to do is to set up a test account. ClimateTrade offers a test environment where you can set up your account, start your development and follow the steps needed to make an integration work exactly the same as it will in the production environment once you’re ready.
Here you need the following urls:
Testing environment
Login / register
Product environment
Login / register
API url
Once you have set up your account you’ll have access to an API Key, valid for the environment where you’ve set the account. You can use that API Key (or Token) to authenticate access to our 2 sets of APIs.
To access our offsetting API (the API you will need to offset emissions) you should add Header “Authorization” with value “Token xxx” where xxx is the value of the API Key of your integration.
View postman example
Here you have an example of a Postman configuration.
To access our calculation API (the API you will need to calculate the carbon footprint of a specific product/service) you should add Header “X-CSRFToken” with value “xxx”, where xxx is the value of the API Key of your integration.
Here you have an example of a Postman configuration.
Our APIs can be used in multiple ways: here are four different use cases.
View use case 1 -> Calculate, offer, offset
In this use case, you want to inform your customer about their footprint, show them the project/s they can select to do so (if they can choose between more than one option) and offset the footprint.
For example, in a delivery application, you want to give customers the possibility to calculate the footprint of each delivery (depending on destination and weight), and the option to offset their emissions by choosing between three possible projects.
View use case 2 -> Only offset
This is a use case where you are using another method of calculating the footprint or you want to offset a fixed weight of emissions. You are providing your customer information about their footprint, but no option to choose a specific project.
An insurance company, for instance, knows from their auditing company that the footprint of subscribing new insurance is 100kg. They want to offer their customers the option to offset these 100kg every time they subscribe to a new insurance product.
View use case 3 -> Calculation + batch offsetting
This is a use case where you want to inform your customer about his/her footprint and the cost of offsetting but for some reason you don’t want to offset at the moment of booking, but somewhen in the future.
A hotel website or an OTA wants to calculate the footprint of a hotel stay when a customer books one, and wants to give such a customer the option to offset that footprint. However the hotel/OTA wants to delay the offsetting until the customer checks in in case they cancel their trip.
View use case 4 -> Fixed amount + offset
This is a use case where you want to dedicate a fixed amount of money to offset emissions, but you can still inform the customer about the amount of CO2 he/she will be offsetting.
An e-commerce website wants to dedicate 1% of their cart value to offset CO2 emissions.
Here you can see a summary of our main operations:
- Calculate footprint APIs: Footprint depends on the kind of services/products you are offering. We have a whole set of APIs to calculate the footprint of your service, check them here
- Calculate offset given amount (calculate_offset_given_amount/). If you have a fixed amount for offsetting you need this endpoint to calculate the weight of CO2 that you can offset. More info here
- Get projects (projects/business/). This endpoint will give you the information of the projects you have balance on your integration and their cost, needed to understand the cost of offsetting. More info here
- Offset your emission (offset/). This endpoint will execute the offset of a given amount, sending our offsetting certificate to the mail provided. More info here
If you have more questions or need more information you can check the page dedicated to the API documentation.
