Across all industries, 2021 has been a breakthrough year of mainstream adoption for blockchain technologies like smart contracts, decentralized finance (DeFi) and digital assets. Immutable and secure, blockchain creates an unbroken chain of data provenance that enables innovative financial products, collaborative business processes and a new level of trust in data.
Trusted data is particularly critical in the emerging green economy, where carbon credits, offsets and certifications currently require extensive manual data capture and validation, and high-profile cases of fraud and greenwashing are shaking confidence in this growing market.
Merging advanced DeFi and enterprise blockchain solutions with a 20-year track record of success in the global energy sector, the Calgary, AB based GuildOne Inc (GuildOne) is working with diverse industries to build the digital infrastructure for the net zero economy. Led by President and CEO, James Graham, GuildOne’s high-value software solutions help clients re-imagine the sustainable, optimized and automated future of their business.
Creating breakthrough solutions
Over the past two decades, GuildOne has established itself as a pioneering technology company designing and creating superior data and financial management solutions for the energy industry. They specialize in “providing advanced data solutions and business intelligence to oil and gas companies seeking to boost business and ESG performance,” explains James.
GuildOne’s revolutionary software solutions, ConTracks and Energy Block Exchange (EBX), use blockchain technology to provide their clients with a seamless, secure and automated way of managing their data, transactions and assets. ConTracks is GuildOne’s proprietary advanced smart contract technology for Corda, R3’s blockchain platform, that provides a framework to create new smart contracts - or adapt existing ones - quickly and easily to automate complicated, multiparty transactions. EBX is a full-service, blockchain-based business network for the energy sector, which facilitates high speed, secure transactions for complex business processes including joint ventures and royalties to name a few.
“Since 2015, GuildOne has invested in the research and development of emerging technologies such as blockchain, smart contracts, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. This culminated in the 2018 unveiling of EBX, the first blockchain business network to transact an energy-smart contract,” explains James.
“Our ability to pull from different systems across the enterprise to create rationalized and validated data are incredibly valuable for business reporting and intelligence.”
For years, GuildOne has been working with oil and gas companies aiding them in solving complex data issues to boost overall business performance, often developing innovative solutions to help clients adapt to the rapid economic and technological changes of today. With regular innovations and upgrades, this company stands uniquely equipped for the new era of decentralized finance and mass data integration. “Shifting to a new blockchain-enabled way of doing businesses is highly challenging for organizations, and we have both the expertise and the technology to facilitate this disruptive transition,” states James.
Owing to their ground-breaking contributions, today GuildOne delivers enterprise blockchain solutions to companies in the energy sector like the Houston, Texas based Blockchain for Energy (B4E) Consortium, which includes super-majors such as ConocoPhillips, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and many others. James further states that “The Company is expanding beyond B2B with the upcoming launch of investor-focused blockchain tokens for verified carbon and renewable energy credits, along with innovative new corporate financing mechanisms.”
Pioneering growth through transformation
GuildOne was established in the dot-com boom in 2001, by technology explorers James Graham and Barry Kreiser. Early success in enterprise data integration in the telecom sector led to the pair being approached by an energy company with a complex problem. “Every department was using varying data sets derived from different data systems, resulting in inconsistent inventory numbers and lost revenues,” says James. The two founders seized this opportunity by creating a solution that provides “enterprise-wide data integration and optimization, helping companies manage and understand their complex data for business optimization and revenue completeness.”
“We would fill in the gaps, so companies could get a shared view of their whole organization on one desktop.”
Along with the rapidly developing technology landscape and fluctuating commodity prices, the business challenges of GuildOne’s clients are constantly evolving. To help their partners stay efficient and prepared for future success, “GuildOne is continually scanning the technology horizon for solutions that will meet their customers’ ever-changing needs,” says James. Historically, they have always been a customer-centric, software company. Depending on the requirements, GuildOne is known to adapt off-the-shelf solutions as well as create customized products, tailor-made for their clients’ needs.
Earlier on in GuildOne’s evolution, James himself was faced with a choice. He could either pursue artificial intelligence, where he was working on some ground-breaking projects or shift to the less established and relatively new field of blockchain. “We saw the potential for blockchain to dramatically change some of the most elemental ways that business and government functions, and felt strongly that from smart contracts to crypto and digital assets, it was going to be a force for reshaping the world for the better,” says James.
Even the culture within GuildOne is built around the company’s values of innovation, sustainability, and inclusion. “We have always had a strong focus on strengthening gender diversity in our industry and have a high proportion of female team members, and the company is a long-time supporter of organizations like the Canadian Blockchain Association for Women,” shares James.
Environmental social governance for a net-zero emission world
GuildOne’s strong focus on research and development and building innovation ecosystems has resulted in numerous landmark technology applications. After creating EBX in 2018, the company conducted the world’s first energy royalty transaction on blockchain with partners including ATB Financial, NAL Resources Management Ltd., and Prairie Sky Royalty Ltd, proving the power of this emerging technology to shorten transaction settlement times and eliminate costly disputes.
This was followed by the company’s versatile smart contract application ConTracks in 2019, and the world’s first Proof-of-Concept (POC) blockchain Authorization for Expenditure (AFE) balloting use case for B4E. Not long ago, in June 2021, GuildOne announced its second engagement with B4E to develop an Integrated Joint Venture (IJVM) solution. With AFE balloting working in synergy with Joint Interest Billing (JIB) functionality this creates the foundational IJVM solution that the industry needs to break down silos and share relevant one source of truth data among internal and external parties.
While developing future POC solutions for the energy sector, GuildOne has always integrated a strong vision for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) into its technologies. The company has launched numerous initiatives and ecosystem projects designed to support indigenous rights, gender inclusion in technology, and progress towards a net-zero emissions world. Not only do they use the power of blockchain to drive the growth of their partners, but also use it as a driver towards ESG, by reducing waste and enhancing data intelligence on sustainability metrics.
“GuildOne’s corporate growth is led by two main factors: the rapid moves towards digitalization by the industries we work with, and the equally fast transition to a highly ESG conscious business environment.”
Last year, when Covid-19 shook world economies, blockchain applications saw a sudden surge of interest especially for finance, digital identity, and improving ESG, creating unprecedented momentum in the blockchain industry. “Like many other companies, GuildOne took a cautious approach of streamlining its operations at the beginning of the pandemic,” says James. They maintained their legacy relationships while pivoting towards opportunities for blockchain in accelerating digitalization caused by the pandemic, including digital identity. Working with a network of partners, the company pioneered one of Canada’s blockchain-based health passports for COVID-19 testing and vaccination results.
“As illustrated by each new global event,” says James, be it forest fires, climate change, or the pandemic, “there are tremendous [environmental and social] challenges facing our planet” today. To meet these challenges, GuildOne continues to evolve and adapt, poised to be the number one developer of ESG blockchain solutions across the globe. “From our Zero Genesis carbon credit tokenization project to new applications for our existing software suite in carbon intensity measurement and analysis, our corporate priorities have focused on sustainability as the most meaningful and also accretive path for GuildOne.”
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