This week we have added 10 new blockchain-driven projects that are aimed at improving sustainability performance1.
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Climate Action
Digitizing high-quality carbon credits through blockchain | UK
Project Description: Although carbon credits can be a useful tool for companies to neutralize their carbon emissions, legacy carbon credits have challenges regarding price opaqueness, illiquidity, and the threat of greenwashing, making them difficult to scale. This leads to the reduction in high-quality carbon credits in the marketplace, making prices unstable. To address this, Thallo is developing a digital marketplace for high-quality voluntary carbon credits, in partnership with sustainability and blockchain industry leaders. The consortium is distributed in three tiers, Founding partners, Integrity partners, and Innovation partners, each having distinct operational capacity. Founding partners, including Climate Collective, Ripple, Undo, VenTree Innovations, InPlanet, BioFix, and TrendCO2e are close strategic partners working with Thallo to support the development and execution of this marketplace. Integrity partners include Carbon Business Council and Crypto Climate Accord, which will help the marketplace to run operations ethically. Innovation partners include Aklimate, Celo Foundation, Chainlink, CleanBlocks, GreenTrade, Ivy Protocol, Filecoin Green, Fix6, Kolektivo, Return Protocol, Senken, SolidWorld DAO, Spirals Protocol, and Sweetgum Labs, which will help the marketplace by working on KPIs of the carbon markets like digital MRV, forward financing, and on-the-ground community engagement. All these companies will help Thallo’s blockchain-based carbon credit marketplace to scale sustainably and ethically. The carbon credits would be tokenized using a blockchain network, to ensure that the carbon project’s data is safely stored in an immutable ledger. While this would enable easy and secure trading of carbon credits, this would also build trust between the buyers and the seller, bringing in transparency and price stability.
Expected Benefits:
Digital MRV will increase the share of high-quality carbon credits in the overall carbon offset marketplace.
Blockchain would make trading of carbon credit easier and seamless, creating liquidity in this market.
A consortium of 23 members and industry leaders creates confidence in the use case of blockchain for carbon offsetting purposes.
More Information: Thallo
Ensuring the authenticity of tokenized carbon credits | Germany
Project Description: Blockchain has expedited the demand for Voluntary Carbon Credits as the technology had eased up the process of originating a carbon credit. However, this easiness has created problems like double counting, greenwashing, price manipulation, and more. This created a strong demand for an on-chain carbon credit rating organization. Senken is partnering with BeZero Carbon to host BeZero Carbon Rating and Rating Summary on the Senken platform. Senken would provide BeZero’s carbon rating to its 250 carbon projects globally. Senken provides tokenized carbon offsetting tools to individuals and enterprises minted on a blockchain network. This enables credit buyers to access all the relevant information about the credit in a secure and immutable environment. BeZero would ensure that this information is credible and authentic, in addition to providing a rating based on the carbon sequestration limit of the project, the age and demography of the project, and more. Information stored on blockchain plus the rating information would allow project developers to get a fair price estimation for their carbon credit.
Expected Benefits:
Given the demand for VCM in the carbon offsetting ecosystem, this partnership will enable VCM to scale sustainably.
BeZero would eliminate the threat of greenwashing and double counting, in addition to building a trustworthy environment.
This partnership would increase the share of high-quality carbon credits in the overall ecosystem.
More Information: Carbon Herald
Enabling mining companies to access high-quality carbon credits | United States
Project Description: The mining industry is one of the biggest industries in the world, both in terms of the scale of operations and environmental impact. According to McKinsey, the cost of capital can be 20-25% higher for those miners with lower ESG scores. While, leading mining companies are taking measures to organically reduce their carbon footprints, many other companies rely on buying carbon credits to offset their impact. However, some legacy carbon trading marketplaces are fragmented and opaque. To address this, Flowcarbon and Watr have entered into a strategic partnership where Flowcarbon would be launching its Voluntary Carbon Marketplace (VCM) marketplace onto Watr protocol, enabling Watr’s clients (mining industry) to offset their carbon emissions. The carbon credits offered by Flowcarbon would be tokenized through a blockchain platform, ensuring that only high-quality carbon credits get transferred. This would increase trustworthiness in the ecosystem, in addition to securing carbon credit-related data on a tamper-proof ledger. Buyers would be able to access this information in real time, with the authenticity of a blockchain. The objective of this partnership is to provide carbon offsetting services to mining companies, in addition, to supply chain tracking and monitoring which is provided by Watr.
Expected Benefits:
This partnership would open a new marketplace for tokenized voluntary carbon credits, increasing liquidity in the market.
The increased demand in the VCM would encourage active participation in carbon-negative project development.
More Information: Yahoo Finance and McKinsey
Waste Management
Expediting circular economy in the cannabis industry through blockchain | Canada
Project Description: As the legality of cannabis has skyrocketed its demand in the US and Canada region, consumption of plastic has also trailed this growth. Due to its durability and low price, single-use plastic is the preferred source of storage and packaging in the Cannabis industry. This has led to immense plastic waste generation, which ends up in landfills or oceans. To address this, Parsl is partnering with Re Waste to develop the '[Re] Waste Powered by Parsl' program which is aimed at improving plastic recycling across the cannabis industry in North America. Parsl provides item-level tracking and data custody in the cannabis industry. With the help of [Re] Waste, Parsl would be able to provide recycling services in the cannabis industry as well. In addition to this, [Re] Waste will be managing the recycling processes and Parsl will be providing the metrics of success. According to [Re] Waste’s Website, the company leverages blockchain to store recycling data, proving a secure and immutable chain of custody for future auditing, and allowing the company to share data with relevant stakeholders.
Expected Benefits:
This project aims to increase the plastic recycling rate in the cannabis industry.
Blockchain would provide transparent recycling metrics, eliminating the threat of greenwashing.
This partnership is expediting circularity in the cannabis industry.
More Information: Newswire EIN and Re Waste
Improving waste recycling efficiency using blockchain | India
Project Description: The waste management process is extremely complicated and involves a lot of steps that are handled by multiple stakeholders, making duplication of data inevitable. In addition to this, the heterogeneity of this process and the magnitude of data generated make it difficult for companies to track their recycling progress. Hasiru Dala Innovations has partnered with Satma CE to implement blockchain for tracking and managing end to end recycling process. All the processes, from the collection of waste, segregation, and sorting to recycling and manufacturing, would be digitized and the data generated from these activities would be stored on a blockchain network, maintained by Satma CE. This will allow recyclers to view real-time data of their supply chain, ensuring efficiency and minimal waste generation in the recycling process. In addition to this, details such as the number of workers in each batch, QC, vendor rating, efficiency, and more would be available to the recycler in a tamper-proof format. The objective of the partnership is to consolidate all the scattered stakeholders in the recycling process, providing them fair wages and a safe working environment. In addition to this, transparency would enable recyclers to calculate their profitability, which was ambiguous before. This will also enable the end users (companies that buy recycled waste) to view the accurate and detailed journey of their product, which they can use to showcase their sustainability initiative.
Expected Benefits:
Transparency in recycling processes would bring efficiency, improving the recycling rates in the industry.
Blockchain would allow companies to treat and pay waste pickers fairly.
This project is expediting the circular economy, by showcasing high recycling efficiency.
More Information: PR Newswire
Water Management
Creating a sustainable water credit marketplace | United States
Project Description: Water management is crucial for feasibly maintaining water resources on the planet. While price instability is a major threat to this resource, water rights or credits can help stabilize the price. These credits allow landowners to use and share reservoir water that is close to their land. However, the legacy water credit marketplace lacks transparency and trust, disallowing it to scale further. To address this, Santo Blockchain Labs, a technology vertical of Santo Mining Corp. is using blockchain technology to enable secure and easy sharing of water rights, creating a sustainable marketplace. The company will develop a blockchain-based token, called AGUA, which will be a stablecoin pegged to a water credit. These tokens will be priced at $0.30 a coin for one liter of water. Santo Blockchain Labs would collect weather data wirelessly via a weather sensor installed in each reservoir. Using in-house analytics, the company would automatically mint or cancel tokens to maintain price stability. This would simultaneously be updated in the landowner's wallet, providing them with accurate water readings. All this data, including the reservoir data, would be deployed on the blockchain, providing an immutable ledger that will eliminate any data manipulation. Apart from collecting water levels, the company would also collect PH and H2O level data from the reservoir. This data would be shared with local governmental agencies to help them take necessary initiatives.
Expected Benefits:
A tokenized water credit would enable easy and secure sharing of water rights, maintaining price stability.
A transparent showcase of water usage would encourage stakeholders to use this resource efficiently.
Being a stablecoin, current cryptocurrency market fluctuations won't affect AGUA's financials.
More Information: Yahoo Finance
Responsible Supply Chain
Tracing cotton supply chain on blockchain | Egypt and Switzerland
Project Description: The fashion and apparel industry have one of the biggest environmental footprints in the world. The scale and multitude of operational processes make the supply chains of this industry complex and difficult to manage. This discourages companies to track their environmental footprint. To address this, Haelixa has developed a DNA marker to label their raw material, premium Egyptian cotton. The said marker is applied to GIZA 96 lint cotton, produced in Borg Al Arab, Egypt. Then the raw material is sent to Weba, in Switzerland, who manufactures premium shirts out of the fabric. The end product is sourced to Hugo Boss for retail distribution. Throughout the supply chain, samples of lint cotton are tested and verified via PCR testing (DNA testing) at different stages, enabling easy identification of the product. In addition to this, this transparency allows the company to track and manage cotton’s environmental footprint, which will help them to curtail it. All this data would be stored on a blockchain network, developed by UN/CEFACT (UNECE). This enables all the involved parties to track their products in real-time, ensuring product authenticity and visibility. Blockchain would provide Haelixa with a safe and secure data storing platform, which is immutable and free from any data manipulation. This project is a part of ‘The Sustainability Pledge’ under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) initiative.
Expected Benefits:
By having a transparent supply chain, fashion brands can showcase their sustainability commitments more credibly.
Blockchain would enable Haelixa to command a higher premium on its product, by showcasing its journey.
A transparent supply chain would ensure that cotton pickers and laborers get fair wages and a safe working environment.
More Information: Innovation in Textiles
Biodiversity
Rescuing domesticated elephants through external financing | Thailand
Project Description: Asian elephants is an iconic species whose population has been decimated by habitat destruction, poaching, domestication, and human-wildlife conflicts in Thailand. According to an assessment report by UNODC, there are around 7400 elephants in Thailand, and around 3700 of those are domesticated. Unchained Elephants is trying to engage external financing to rescue two or more elephants in Thailand. The company plans to use the external funding to buy and rescue these animals from abusive work environments in the tourism industry. Unchained Elephants is leveraging NFTs as a funding mechanism to mobilize funds toward rescue operations. The NFT would also be used to raise awareness about the unjust treatment of elephants held in captivity, especially targeting travelers. The company would be providing additional traveling benefits to the NFT holders, encouraging them to actively engage. In addition to this, the company would also provide free training to elephant caretakers and business owners. This will enable them to put elephant welfare at the forefront and run their business ethically. Apart from raising awareness, the NFT would allow donors to directly share their funds with the project developer, eliminating any middlemen. The financial transaction of this fundraising would also be stored on the blockchain, ensuring future auditability and transparency. Unchained Elephants would be issuing 9999 NFTs through ripple blockchain and 40% of the proceeds will go toward rescue operation. In addition to this, some percentage of secondary sales is also allocated to rescue operations.
Expected Benefits:
This project would create awareness about the mistreatment of elephants in the tourism industry.
Other project developers from anywhere in the world can utilize the blockchain to raise funds similarly.
Blockchain provides an inexpensive method of fundraising, which benefits both the project developer and the donor.
More Information: Global Newswire and UNODC
Community Health and Wellness
Enabling digital transformation in the healthcare industry | United States
Project Description: The lack of digitization of healthcare and its services has prevented the industry to reach the masses, slowing down the penetration rate. This has led to high turn-around time for doctors in remote areas. In addition to this, healthcare data management also creates a challenge, preventing hospitals and clinics to digitize their services. To address this, Solve.Care and ClinicalSquared have teamed up to create blockchain-based networks on the Solve.Care platform. Solve.Care provides a decentralized platform for healthcare entities to go digital. Data generated from all the transactions are stored on a blockchain network, where it gets tokenized for hospital interoperability. This enables various healthcare entities to share data amongst themselves, without worrying about data management. ClinicalSquared has been appointed to author the data stored in the blockchain, keeping the data on the blockchain itself. This partnership aims to enable a quicker turn-around time for the deployment of digital health networks. This digitization of healthcare services would allow easy and secure access to basic healthcare services for people living in remote locations.
Expected Benefits:
A tamper-proof record-keeping solution would encourage healthcare agents to digitize their operations.
This project will help healthcare services digitally reach remote locations, without worrying about traveling time.
Blockchain would ensure the safekeeping of patients’ healthcare data, eliminating data mishandling and third-party intrusion.
More Information: EIN Newswire
Healthcare data storing and patient engagement through blockchain | Kenya
Project Description: AIDS is one of the most prominent diseases in the African Subcontinent, especially in Kenya where, according to the WHO, estimated adult prevalence stands at 4.2%, which is amongst the highest in the world. This can be countered with newer medications being developed by physicians. However, it becomes difficult for them to actively engage patients and volunteers, in addition, to safely storing healthcare data and test results. In addressing this, Immunify.Life is partnering with Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology (MMUST), to store HIV/AIDS medical testing results and incentivize volunteers to actively participate. To do so, the partnership is leveraging Cardano Network. MMUST is a research university in Kenya, which is conducting a mass study to examine the effectiveness of newer medications. Immunify.Life will store all the data collected from various collection points throughout the study timeline and deploy it on Cardano Network. Blockchain would enable MMUST to safely and securely share this healthcare data with their relevant partner institutions and doctors in addition to keeping this data tamper-proof. Immunify.Life will also utilize blockchain’s tokenization ability to provide rewards and incentives to study volunteers, improving the adherence rate in the community. This will not only improve Kenyans' health but also provide a solid database for pharmaceutical scientists to conduct tests on.
Expected Benefits:
This partnership will eventually improve the medical regime adherence rate in previously lapsed HIV/AIDS patients.
The results from the study will contribute to the future strategic direction of HIV treatment in Kenya.
More Information: PR Newswire and WHO
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