Governments and organizations worldwide have been concentrating on adopting various technical solutions to address the issues posed by climate change and biodiversity loss in recent years. Blockchain technology could be very useful in addressing climate catastrophes.
The Blockchain, the shared database technology that underpins Bitcoin and Ethereum, will bring disruptive changes to many industries in the next 10 years . This technology has long been used in banking, processing payments and more. But most people don’t realize that the same technology can also solve our environmental problems. If properly applied globally, it can even stop and reverse climate change!
Entrepreneurial Future Trend Of Blockchain Technology With Digital Economy 2022
The blockchain is the technology that underlies bitcoin and Ethereum, and there are many ways it can help protect the environment and stop climate change.
The Role Of Blockchain In Environmental Projects
A blockchain is a shared ledger that stores transaction records and other information. It is not owned by anyone and is backed up on many computers worldwide. Anyone can use this technology and access the network. Once the data is written, it cannot be modified and will be permanently recorded in the general ledger. Most participants must confirm all data before adding, and also has advanced encryption protection, so it is very difficult to be tampered with.
In addition to being permanent and tamper-proof, the blockchain is also a decentralized shared database, which brings a new perspective to solving environmental problems. It can track and verify transactions and interactions even without a central authority. This greatly increases the transparency, efficiency and credibility of environmental programs.
Readers may wish to refer to the following seven ways to use blockchain to protect the environment:
Green blockchain can be applied in a variety of industries to promote environmental sustainability and support the transition to a more sustainable future.
- Energy: Green blockchain can be used to support the growth of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power, and to enable peer-to-peer trading of renewable energy.
- Agriculture: Blockchain can be used to track the origin and distribution of sustainable agricultural products, ensuring that they are truly eco-friendly and promoting sustainable farming practices.
- Transportation: Blockchain can be used to track the carbon emissions of vehicles, enabling the creation of a more sustainable transportation system.
- Waste Management: Blockchain can be used to track and manage the disposal of waste, promoting the efficient use of resources and reducing waste.
- Manufacturing: Blockchain can be used to track the origin and distribution of sustainable materials, promoting the use of environmentally friendly products and reducing waste.
- Forestry: Blockchain can be used to track the origin and distribution of sustainable forest products, promoting responsible forestry practices and reducing deforestation.
- Fishing: Blockchain can be used to track the origin and distribution of sustainable seafood, promoting responsible fishing practices and reducing overfishing.
These are just a few examples of how green blockchain can be applied in different industries. By promoting transparency, accountability, and efficient use of resources, green blockchain has the potential to help us create a more sustainable future.
1. Supply Chain Management
Most customers hope that every purchase is a conscientious consumption, but the relevant information is always difficult to search and confirm. Goods often have to go through many hands to reach the store and to the customer. It is absolutely easy for the company to deceive the production source of the product, how to dispose of waste, and whether to exploit employees.
The blockchain can start tracking from the manufacturer, making the supply chain more transparent, thereby improving efficiency, and avoiding waste, blockchain fraud management and other misconduct. It also provides customers with more information and empowers them to choose greener products.
Taking food as an example, this feature allows buyers to buy locally-produced local food, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of overseas food delivery to the local area. It also ensures that the catch is genuine sustainable seafood and that the coffee beans on hand are truly fair trade.
Foodtrax is a mobile app that uses blockchain technology, developed by the Blockchain Development Company, and is used to track food’s origin. Provenance is another blockchain project to improve supply chain transparency.
2. Recycling
Existing recycling policies often fail to provide incentives for citizens to participate, and the responsibility for recycling falls on the shoulders of individual cities, and many places are simply indifferent. The only policy effects are difficult to estimate and compare. The blockchain recycling program can encourage people to participate in activities with financial rewards, such as putting in plastic containers and aluminum cans to get cryptocurrency. Similar schemes have been implemented in some parts of the world, especially in the Nordic region.
Social Plastic (aka Plastic Bank ) is turning plastic into money by setting up recycling centers in the third world. When people put in used plastic products, they receive currency, which can be exchanged for services such as mobile phone charging or supplies such as gas. The project aims to clean up the world’s plastic waste while alleviating poverty. They are now developing another blockchain-powered mobile app that allows users to exchange plastic for cryptocurrencies.
RecycleToCoin is another blockchain app under development that aims to allow users to exchange used plastic containers for tokens through automated machines.
3. Energy Distribution
Traditional energy is managed by the central, which is easy to cause uneven distribution. While there is a surplus of electricity in some places, some areas have been devastated by natural disasters or have suffered power outages due to poverty. An energy system based on peer-to-peer blockchain technology can reduce the need for long-distance transportation, thereby reducing power consumption. It can even divert electricity from oversupplied areas to other local areas in need, reducing the need for storage.
Transactive Grid , a joint venture between ConsenSys and LO3 Energy , was born to solve this problem.
SunContract is also a platform built on peer-to-peer blockchain to trade solar and other renewable energy.
In addition to this, the construction of power plants often involves huge costs, usually financed by the government or large private companies. The blockchain platform encourages more institutions, companies and citizens to make profits by investing in renewable energy installations in various places.
EcoChain is an under-development blockchain app that provides a platform for the public to invest in renewable energy.
4. Environmental Treaties
The actual benefits of environmental treaties are extremely difficult to measure. More often, the government and companies do not have enough incentives to protect their commitments, and fraud and manipulation become particularly rampant. With blockchain, companies and governments can stop companies and governments from making false statements about progress and breaching environmental commitments.
Taking carbon credits as an example, the annual administrative cost is as high as 900 million US dollars. With an immutable cap-and-trade record, it is difficult for companies and governments to turn a blind eye to illegal transactions and bribery.
5. Non-Profit Groups
Every time you donate to an environmental group, it can be difficult to understand how and to whom the donation is actually being used. Not to mention that bureaucratic culture, corruption, etc. are still quite common among charities. Blockchain technology can ensure that funds do not fall into the pockets of criminals. It can also be set that when a certain environmental group meets certain conditions, the donation will be automatically sent to the organization.
Blockchain technology makes it even possible to transfer money without a bank account, benefiting some countries without a well-established banking system. That is, the middlemen and complicated procedures are omitted, and the donations are directly delivered to those in need. Bitgive and Bithope are good examples of charities leveraging cryptocurrencies.
6. Carbon Tax
Currently, the environmental impact of each product cannot be quantified, and the carbon footprint is never included in the price of the product. In other words, customers and businesses simply don’t have enough incentive to buy or sell products with a low carbon footprint.
If blockchain technology is used to record the carbon footprint of goods and protect the data from being modified, it can also calculate the carbon tax at the time of sale. When products with a high carbon footprint become expensive, customers tend to buy greener options, forcing companies to adjust their supply chains to offer more low-carbon products. It can even establish a corporate reputation system to score brands and products according to their carbon footprints, making production more transparent and combating all unfriendly business practices.
7. Flexible Environmental Reward And Punishment Policies
Blockchain technology can help individuals and businesses understand the impact of their actions. With transparent information, an appropriate system of rewards and punishments can be set up to encourage people to actively and sustainably protect the environment. Things like credit scoring, tokenization to protect the environment, etc. These rewards are enough to revolutionize the driving force of the economy, benefiting not only us, but even the next generation.
Other reviews
Blockchains have one big advantage: It is practically impossible to change data. While this is groundbreaking and indeed facilitates tracking, it comes at a (too?) high cost. Even without proof-of-work as a trust mechanism, the essential property of a blockchain is that many copies exist of the data. No matter how you look at this, the data redundancy is wasteful and does not belong in a climate-concerned, sustainability-oriented world. For sure there are other ways to improve tracking and tracing to achieve the seven discussed ways to lower climate change?
How can blockchain help in the environmental crisis?
It is difficult to overstate blockchain technology’s contribution to increasing sustainability and reducing climate catastrophe.
According to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), blockchain’s distributed ledger technology can offer important enhancements by enabling investors, developers, and buyers of renewable energy projects to work together on a common platform with established international standards for compliance due diligence.
Power Ledger
An Australian technology company called Power Ledger has begun investigating the potential effects of blockchain. In Uttar Pradesh, India, the group created a trial project. They allowed homeowners who installed solar panels on their rooftops to sell electricity to other grid users. Real-time price setting and blockchain-based transaction implementation are required for this. The use of renewable energy can be expanded with the aid of these technologies.
Opportunities
Supply chains that are ecologically friendly and sustainable can also leverage blockchain technology. By making supply chains transparent, technology can follow products from the point of manufacture and assist prevent waste and inefficiency. Blockchain can also give customers more insight into the manufacturing and delivery processes for the products. As a result, they will be able to choose environmentally friendly options.
Pitfalls
Even if using blockchain technology to address the environmental situation has numerous advantages, there are also many drawbacks. Certain transactions on the bitcoin and Ethereum blockchains take considerable electricity and computational power to process. This is a major problem in many nations where energy costs can be excessively high.
Wax blockchain is the most environmentally friendly. Algorand declared its blockchain to be completely carbon-neutral.
The ability of blockchain to cut equipment and technology costs as well as market and inventory development costs would benefit business and industry.
15 Environmentally Sustainable Blockchain and its currencies
Blockchain and sustainable resource management Can be an environmental game changer
Decentralized, eco-friendly, and more resource-efficient energy and water systems can be scaled up with the use of blockchain. Web3 gaming platforms consume a lot of energy, and adopting an eco-friendly blockchain will fix a lot of carbon emissions. Platforms might gather dispersed data from various resources (e.g. household-level water and energy data collected with smart sensors). This is a game-changer since decision-makers in the systems frequently act on incomplete information, including centralized authorities and retail-level consumers. Platforms powered by blockchain could get around this and allow for better informed and even decentralized decision-making regarding managing those resources or the overall system. This could include peer-to-peer trading, dynamic pricing, traceability and certification of renewable energy sources, and improved demand-side balance.
