Earth Day, a 52-year tradition celebrated annually on April 22, provides an opportune moment for the world’s citizens to reflect on their environmental progress, as well as rally support for policymaking, cultural awareness on the climate and individual commitments to sustainability.
The rise of blockchain and Web3 has provided the core architecture for a structural reshaping in public transparency, and as such a technology that has the potential to be harnessed in service of the visions set forth by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Climate Agreement.
Cointelegraph spoke with various environmental experts to gauge their views and ideas on how Web3 companies can make a positive impact on the global climate effort using the power of blockchain technology.
Sander DiAngelis, head of growth and partnerships at Toucan Protocol, advocated a fusion of physical and digital initiatives, noting that “tokenized carbon credits” are enabling the creation of “virtual carbon sinks that positively impact the planet.” In the real world”.
Coinbase’s philanthropic climate program, which allocates 1% of its corporate income to projects that seek to enhance the democratization of cryptocurrencies, recently awarded a $500,000 ecosystem grant to Toucan Protocol to build its carbon markets infrastructure.
Announcing: @Coinbase Giving x Toucan: Ecosystem Grants for Regenerative Innovation
How this looks? Coinbase Giving is granting $500k to Toucan to kickstart our Builder Hub!https://t.co/C63JcKqbFF
Details pic.twitter.com/BG6B5jk7bZ
— Toucan Protocol @ETHAmsterdam (@ToucanProtocol) April 20, 2022
Projects like Pachama and Dovu are using AI and hash graph technologies, respectively, to calculate, quantify and report carbon footprint data in order to improve accountability and transparency within the corporate and Web3 industries.
In association with action groups such as REDD+, Pachama has established a series of ecosystem restoration projects, such as the Colombian coastal deforestation prevention scheme titled Bajo Calima and Bahía Málaga. Near the end of his ten-year term, more than 1.2 million metric tons of carbon have been sequestered from the environment through the issuance of credits.
Within the crypto space, organizations such as the Climate Chain Coalition and the Crypto Climate Accord, who ranked 34th on Cointelegraph’s Top 100 of 2022 list, have made considerable strides in encouraging collaboration and enacting environmental commitments to the crypto space.
Mitch Liu, CEO of blockchain video streaming platform Theta Network, shared his belief that the cultural prominence placed on the climate change crisis could instigate the creation of cutting-edge decentralized solutions.
He cited ClimateDAO’s work in “pooling the resources of its members to buy shares in large polluting companies to make their activities more sustainable from within” as an excellent example of this innovation. He went on to say:
“As NFTs have entered the mainstream conversation over the past year, the environmental backlash has turned fierce. There has been a pernicious assumption that all NFTs are bad for the environment.”
Liu says that this blanket assessment “completely ignores proof-of-stake blockchains like Theta, which use 0.05% of the energy compared to chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum.”
It’s time to settle it with a poll. Which Metaverse token do you prefer?
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) April 19, 2022
It’s time to solve it with a survey. Which metaverse token do you prefer?
Christian Hasker, Director of Marketing at Hedera Hashgraph, spoke about “striving for a clean Web3” within the distributed ledger technology (DLT) space, emphasizing the industry’s collective obligation to ensure that “Not only do we have the knowledge and solutions to ensure that the next generation of the Internet is sustainable, but more importantly, we have a responsibility to do so.”
Before promising Hedera’s continued focus on building green apps with the support of its twenty-six board members, he cited the negative perception of proof-of-work consensus mechanisms, including those that espouse green principles, stating:
“I strongly believe that Layer 1 carbon neutrality is the only way to fulfill the promise of a sustainable future based on DLT. The best way to conserve energy is not to use it in the first place, a sentiment shared by giant industries and large organizations that are introducing zero-carbon targets.”
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