Blockchain for Sustainability Weekly
Volume 20 | 14-Aug-22 | 12 Projects
This week we have added 12 ‘blockchain for sustainability’ projects to our platform which now has ~310 projects1.
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Waste-to-Energy
Funding modular bioenergy projects using blockchain | United States
Project Description: Agtech sector has been buzzing with innovative ideas and technologies that not only drive efficiency but also promote sustainable agriculture, contributing to a greener economy. However, these technologies find it difficult to scale because of huge Capex and Opex costs that prevent single entities from investing in these technologies and taking all the risk. To break this bottleneck, Easy Energy Systems has developed multiple waste-to-energy, modules that can convert a variety of waste types into fertilizers, clean water, biofuels, and of course associated carbon credits. In order to ease the adoption of this technology, Easy Energy Finance Inc. is issuing the Easy Energy Climate Token security to provide end-user operating leases to potential customers who desire to install these modules. It plans to raise $100 million of asset-backed, dividend-yielding security tokens that will be administered by Securitize Markets. The funds will be used by Easy Energy Finance to purchase modular systems from both Easy Energy Systems, Inc. and the recently formed Easy Modular Manufacturing, Inc. These systems will then be leased to end-user customers on operating leases, and the token holder investors will share the dividend realized from approximately 45% of the net operating profit of every deployed system – not just until the system is paid for – but for the entire life of the machine. Blockchain will help the company to secure funding while also ensuring the trust of investors remain intact through maintaining secure, transparent, and immutable record keeping, eliminating any financial fraud. All the modular systems will be monitored by a central command center, optimizing the company’s operation. The company’s first focus will be funding the sale/lease of Easy Fen Liquid Microbe Fertilizer and Nano Void Water Purification. This project aims to enable fair and secure profit sharing between the customers and investors who are willing to invest in greater adoption of green technologies, and blockchain is acting as an investment vehicle for the same.
Expected Benefits:
Rural communities and agricultural farm coops will be able to secure funding through blockchain-based security tokens.
Blockchain will ensure full transparency and trust in the investing process
This project will enable impact investors to diversify their portfolios through investing in innovative waste-to-energy projects that could potentially deliver strong recurring returns.
Successful financing through this model will enthuse other innovative Ag-tech companies to adopt this model and scale the adoption of their technology.
More Information: MCap Media Wire, Easy Energy Finance
Recycling
Blockchain facilitating circular economy in tire industry | United States
Project Description: As eco-friendly tires are expensive to procure and manufacture, tires are generally made with environmentally unsustainable raw materials such as carbon black and other oil-based products. This creates an opportunity for manufacturers to use recycled compounds to make tires. However, tracking and tracing these recycled compounds in a supply chain presents a challenge, discouraging the use of these compounds. To address and tackle this problem, Klean Industries Inc has partnered with Kodexe to develop and implement the KleanLoop platform that will be used to tokenize all waste and recyclables for the global marketplace. The platform will be using blockchain to host a suite of services for tire manufacturers. This project will implement KleanLoop with Klean Industries’ facility in Oregon, United States, which will recycle approximately 160 metric tons of waste tires per day. The project is focused on producing high-quality Recovered Carbon Black (rCB) and Recovered Fuel Oil (rFO). Both the tire pyrolysis-derived products will be re-integrated for reuse directly back into the Carbon Black manufacturing supply chain with a Carbon Black producer. This project will be the first fully circular tire recycling project in North America. Blockchain will help the company ensure commodity procurement, waste and resource tracking, supply chain transparency, integrated payment options, scheduling and delivery details, and a single source of operational truth and transparency. All the data generated and used in the said services will be deployed on the blockchain, enabling the company to share this data in a secure and immutable ledger format, in addition to real-time tracking of the product. This will eliminate any data manipulation while ensuring authenticity and trust among relevant stakeholders. The platform will enable end-to-end supply management for any recycling, waste processing, and Waste-to-Energy project.
Expected Benefits:
Reusing carbon black compounds will decrease the production of this element, paving the way for a circular economy in tire manufacturing.
Reusing the manufacturing compounds will help the company save resources on the procurement of raw materials.
This project will drive the company’s recycling and waste management initiative.
This will encourage other tire manufacturers to integrate blockchain with the tire recycling process.
More Information: Global Newswire
Tracking recycled plastic through blockchain | Europe
Project Description: As plastic is frequently consumed by all, its production is rising with the rising demand. This has led to increased volumes of plastic waste. According to a McKinsey study, only 12% of all plastic waste is reused or recycled. A large part, however, is disposed of in incinerators and landfills. As a result, the material can no longer be used as a resource. This has forced companies to implement a circular economy in their supply chain. However, tracking recycled products is a persistent challenge for most companies. To address this, Mitsubishi Chemical Europe is piloting SAP’s GreenToken solution in its methyl methacrylate (MMA) supply chain. The objective of this project is to demonstrate that their plastic products contain a certain percentage of chemically recycled materials. To do so, the company is leveraging blockchain technology. GreenToken will tokenize the amount of plastic in the company’s supply chain, enabling them to trace the respective product’s footprint. These tokens are transferred from the wallet of one player in the supply chain to that of another. This creates a traceability history, an immutable chain of custody that ensures complete supply chain transparency and trusted data. This token will mimic the movement of the said product in a secure and transparent format, eliminating any data manipulation.
Expected Benefits:
By using blockchain, the company can easily distinguish between recycled products and non-recycled products, encouraging them to increase the recycled share.
This project will drive the company’s initiative for a circular economy.
This project will encourage other participants in the chemical industry to adopt recycled plastic in their supply chain.
More Information: SAP and McKinsey
Biodiversity
Blockchain encouraging tree plantation | United States
Project Description: Forestation is a great way to help decarbonize the planet. However, planting trees at a large scale requires a lot of upfront capital investment, in addition to recurring time and money infusion and tracking the plantation. This discourages many individuals and companies to take part in forestation activities. A sustainable way is to create an investment funnel for companies to invest in tree plantation activities. To do this, Axis Technologies Group Inc is partnering with Save Planet Earth to plant 100 million trees over the next 5 years. This partnership will enable other companies and individuals to finance tree plantations through the use of NFTs. These NFTs will be minted on the blockchain network, making the buying process easy and seamless. All the data of the tree plantation, including land and tree information, carbon sequestration limit of the land, and more will be stored on the blockchain network for secure and immutable data recording and sharing, eliminating greenwashing and data manipulation. All this will be done using Axis Technologies’s TIENCHAT app. In addition to this, the company will also tokenize the carbon credits generated from this plantation, equivalent to 100 million tons of carbon credits, through the CARBONIS carbon credit marketplace. All these services will be managed by TIEN DAO, which is releasing at the end of 2023. A DAO is a decentralized autonomous organization, built on top of a blockchain network that improves governance and brings democracy to decision-making. DAOs facilitate fast and unbiased decision-making driven by smart contracts that result in transparency for all stakeholders involved.
Expected Benefits:
This project will enable companies to offset their carbon footprint by purchasing carbon credits.
Blockchain will ensure the data integrity of the carbon credits, making them verifiable and auditable to the end-user.
NFTs will streamline tree plantation financing, making it accessible and inexpensive.
This project will encourage small landowners to plant and maintain trees, enabling regenerative finance.
More Information: Yahoo Finance
ReFi initiatives to protect Amazon rainforests | Brazil
Project Description: The Amazon Rainforests are referred to as the lungs of our planet, and erosion of these rainforests is directly hurting the fight against climate change. There is an urgent need to preserve these rainforests and regenerative financing (ReFi) has emerged as a way to channel resources toward initiatives that prevent afforestation and promote reforestation. Regen Network Development Inc. has teamed up with Moss to develop and issue their tokenized carbon credits on Regen Network. Through this partnership, Moss will use Regen Network's secure and sovereign blockchain to issue, track, and retire carbon credits. Moss will develop a methodology for peer review, issue, and administer credits that are generated by projects linked to preserving the Amazon rainforest. Moss will conduct methodology testing, project verification, and digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV). It will author a credit class for their Decentralized Carbon System (DCS) Protocol, and establish Credit Class Administrators and Credit Issuers to perform the service of carbon credit issuance on the Regen Registry. Regen Network will provide technical support and methodology development for these activities. All the data generated through these processes will be stored on a blockchain network for secure and immutable data sharing, ensuring the authenticity of the said data.
Expected Benefits:
This project will pave way for a regenerative finance ecosystem, by encouraging landowners to plant more trees.
Blockchain will ensure that there is no data manipulation in the market, ensuring high-quality carbon credits availability.
More Information: Yahoo Finance
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Community Development
Decentralizing internet connectivity through blockchain | Ecuador
Project Description: The Internet has become an important and useful aspect of our life. That is the reason why in 2011, UN General Assembly declared access to the internet a Human Right. However, people in developing nations still lack the necessary means for internet connectivity, and many of them reside in Latin America. This is due to the Internet Service Providers' tendency to upsell to their established customer base, rather than reaching the untapped market where people are in dire need of connectivity. To address this situation, Wayru is leveraging blockchain to decentralize this ecosystem for the untapped market. The Wayru network has been designed to reduce both the time and cost of their broadband deployments, whilst increasing the internet speeds for its WiFi On-the-Go service to meet the needs of homes and businesses. The lower-cost model avoids the trap of pricey, long-winded contracts and setup costs that are familiar to most global broadband users. The company is deploying the first internet node in Quito and Guayaquil, the largest cities in Ecuador. The company will be using Algorand to tokenize the hotspots into groups, called Hotspot Pools, enabling supporters to buy the device or financially back the company. All the supporters will receive Pool tokens, a security token minted on Algorand. All these tokens will be automatically staked and receive yield. Anyone who buys Genesis, the company’s hotspot device, will also get incentivized as the network pool will become denser.
Expected Benefits:
This project will provide internet access to the underprivileged communities, and allow them access to basic internet services.
The project will incentivize users to buy or support the network, making this network more resilient.
More Information: Bitcoin and UN General Assembly
Fundraising through NFTs | Ukraine
Project Description: War has an impact on people’s lives beyond bullets and bombs. The war launched on Ukraine has made over 7.1 million people internally displaced, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This presents an opportunity for donors and philanthropists to donate to this noble cause. However, cross-border payment charges discourage small and medium-sized donors to donate, in addition to a lack of trust in fund handling. To address this challenge, Dubai’s Decentralised Investment Group (DIG) has launched an NFT collection, whose proceeds will go to the Save the Children foundation and Women for Women International. This charitable generative NFT collection will consist of 14,850 NFTs, featuring artist renditions of the most famous monuments and landmarks from Ukrainian cities. Three additional NFTs will consist of video recordings of Jamala (project’s brand ambassador), singing three Ukrainian folk songs. 70% of all proceeds raised will be equally distributed between two international charities while the remaining 30% is allocated for operating costs. Proceeds from the sale of this NFT collection will help Save the Children continue working alongside local partners distributing food, water, hygiene items, psychosocial support, and cash assistance to children and their families in dire need in Ukraine and the surrounding region. NFTs will be minted on the blockchain as it will provide authenticity to the end-user (donor), and will ensure that the funds will go directly to the targeted organization. Blockchain will also eliminate any middlemen or intermediaries in the fundraising process.
Expected Benefits:
This project will open up an alternative and safe funding stream for similar projects in near future.
Blockchain will eliminate any unnecessary cross-border payment charges, encouraging more and more donors to donate.
NFTs will make donations in smaller amounts possible, opening a wider market for this project.
More Information: Crypto News and IOM
Responsible Supply Chain
Curtailing food wastage through blockchain | Singapore
Project Description: Lack of transparency with regards to the supply chain of perishable products can harm the consumer’s health and safety and creates challenges if the products are to be recalled. However, in the case of international shipments, an opaque supply chain can further create inefficiencies. Due to heavy paperwork, fragmented, and the complex nature of international payment, the lost time can take a toll on the quality of the produce. To address these challenges, DiMuto and Aleta Planet have partnered to deploy blockchain onto the supply chain and B2B payment framework. DiMuto’s proprietary digital asset creation technology, Dacky, is designed to allow supply chain partners to trace and visualize the end-to-end process of perishable produce, including fruits and vegetables, from the time they leave the farm to the minute they are put on the consumer’s table. The supply chain data is stored on the blockchain for an easy, secure, and immutable data storing and sharing experience. Dacky uses QR labels and images, in addition to AI and IoT, to track fruits and cartons so that anyone in the supply chain, from farmers and packers to logistics and shipping companies, distributors, or retailers, to have clear data of their merchandise, to ensure smooth out trades and minimize food waste. This partnership with Aleta Planet will allow SMEs in the agri-food industry to faster and more cost-efficient B2B payment system that leverages blockchain, ensuring less time is spent from the minute produce is harvested to the moment it is shipped and consumed.
Expected Benefits:
Blockchain will eliminate any middleman or intermediaries in the cross-border transaction, for an inexpensive and smooth process.
A transparent supply chain will eliminate any non-consumable food item, ensuring consistent quality throughout.
A streamlined and transparent supply chain of perishable goods can help curtail food wastage.
More Information: The Paypers
Climate Action
Issuing and verifying carbon credits through blockchain | Singapore
Project Description: Carbon credits are a great way to bridge the gap between ESG projects and companies that want to offset their carbon footprint. However, the legacy carbon credits marketplaces struggle with a lack of accessibility and transparency, middlemen, heavy paperwork, and fragmented operations, making them costly and ineffective. To address these issues, URECA is converting the traditional carbon credit into a digital security token, minted on the blockchain. Processes such as verification of credits are being automated, allowing trading to be cheaper and more efficient. Blockchain will help improve the current carbon credit marketplace by improved transparency on where the credits originate from, a total chain of custody, decentralized and transparent registries, and the ability to scale the markets through the use of smart contracts. Blockchain will ensure the verifiability of information through immutable record keeping. This project is in line with Singapore’s effort in becoming a net-zero economy by 2050.
Expected Benefits:
This project will allow small carbon-positive projects to issue carbon credits.
The project will increase the much-required liquidity in the market, encouraging more carbon-positive projects to issue carbon credits.
The threat of greenwashing will get eliminated once the verification process is automated.
More Information: World News Era
Avoiding emissions related to last-mile delivery | Croatia
Project Description: Due to the change in consumption pattern, Covid 19 has led to increased proportions of last-mile deliveries. According to a report by Clean Mobility Collective and Stand.Earth Research Group, the last-mile emissions of the six most polluting delivery and e-commerce companies alone are approximately 4.5 megatons of CO2, equivalent to CO2 emissions from 600,000 US homes for one year. This presents an opportunity for companies to implement sharing economy (p2p sharing access of goods and services), to curtail emissions related to last-mile delivery. To encourage this, Gepak has developed a decentralized, blockchain-based logistics infrastructure, making supply chains manageable, resilient, and sustainable. The company will be leveraging blockchain to provide increased security and real-time tracking data. Gepak will also be using an augmented reality driven p2p positioning protocol, reducing the over-dependence on GPS, especially beneficial for hyper-local deliveries, which is developed by Auki Labs. All the data generated from drivers’ delivery vehicles, would be stored on the blockchain, enabling immutable real-time tracking of the parcel. Gepek is also planning to use blockchain for enabling crypto payment options and a tokenized reputation system for drivers.
Expected Benefits:
This project will further drive the company’s commitment to implementing sharing economy.
Blockchain will eliminate any fraudulent activity in the delivery ecosystem, maintaining customers’ trust in sharing economy.
This project will help the company reduce its carbon emissions, strengthening its sustainability initiatives.
More Information: Techcrunch and Clean Mobility
Renewable Energy
Charging electric boats through sustainable energy source | Spain
Project Description: Electric Vehicles or EVs have been positively received by many developed economies. They are greener than typical combustion vehicles, quieter, and smoother. However, the source of the electricity used by the charging stations remains questionable. To address this challenge, AICharge is teaming up with Clúster de l'Energia Eficient, Catalan Water Partnership, GPASEABOTS, Power Innotech, and Prosume, to develop charging stations in anchoring coves. These charging stations will be utilized by pleasure boats, who do not want to park in typical ports. Prosume will ensure that these charging stations will use sustainable energy sources, by implementing blockchain and AI. After a promising trial conducted in Puerto Marina de Palamós, Spain, this project is testing blockchain and AI in anchoring coves. Blockchain will be used to store all the data from the electricity grid and charging stations, in addition to AI, to give the user full autonomy in choosing which electricity source they want to use.
Expected Benefits:
This project will increase the share of sustainable energy sources in the overall energy mix.
The use of renewable energy sources will reduce the over-dependence on the electricity grid.
More Information: Iagua
Food Security
Improving farmers’ access to machinery through blockchain | Africa
Project Description: According to estimates compiled by Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), we need to produce 70% more food to feed the population by 2050. However, smallholder farmers cannot achieve this with the current technology, as most of them rely on hand tools and limited access to automation. To address this issue, Boston University and Algorand Foundation are partnering with Hello Tractor to implement blockchain to enable farmers in Africa access to machinery. Hello Tractor’s digital ecosystem connects smallholder farmers seeking machinery (tractor) with fleet managers looking to improve their tractor service delivery. Hello Tractor installs a GPS monitoring device onto every tractor, enabling the owner to track their equipment, and usage, and minimize fraud as their operator services farmers along their pre-booked route. This platform is built on top of Algorand Network. The blockchain-based solution, termed ‘Tokenomics,’ will develop and protect information on all bookings and tractor activities of tractor owners, streamlining the entire digital ecosystem. All the said data would be stored on the blockchain in a secure and immutable manner, to eliminate data manipulation and profit pools. Blockchain will also encourage booking agents and other stakeholders to produce information, enforce agreements, provide infrastructure, and take steps to build users' trust, by providing them tokens in the form of incentives. Access to tokens will improve Hello Tractor’s current mobile and web app platform by creating incentives for farmers, tractor owners, booking agents, and investors, addressing the bottlenecks to access.
Expected Benefits:
This project will ensure increased agricultural productivity in Africa, eventually curtailing food scarcity.
Blockchain will bridge the gap between machinery owners and smallholder farmers.
Insights generated from this project could support the work of other firms, which are trying to provide healthcare, clean energy, and other services to rural communities.
This platform will enable a new stream of income for those who own tractors, booking agents, and other actors in the process.
More Information: Algorand Foundation, Boston University and FAO
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