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Climate

Oct 05
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Climate Action and Accounting Special Interest Group (CA2SIG) wins The Hyperledger Challenge 2022!

By Hyperledger Blog, Climate, Hyperledger Besu, Hyperledger Bevel, Hyperledger Cacti, Hyperledger Fabric, Special Interest Group

The Hyperledger Climate Action and Accounting Special Interest Group (CA2SIG) has just taken first place in the Hyperledger Challenge 2022 for its prototype for Reducing Methane Leakage and Flaring with Supply Chain Tokens. 

The Hyperledger Challenge 2022 took into careful consideration the following factors: 

1. Technology advancement and research objectives
2. Impact to the blockchain ecosystem
3. Value addition through social benefits
4. Process followed to build an open-source community around the proposed project
5. Activities outside the Hyperledger community to build the ecosystem
6. Bring in innovation in the marketplace
7. Headway into the community that is not represented well within the ecosystem.

This Hyperledger Challenge 2022 award follows the recent announcement of another award from IBM’s 2022 Call for Code Green Practices Accelerator, where the CA2SIG team also took first place for its prototype. 

“The team would like to thank the Hyperledger Challenge 2022 team for supporting our project. These recent wins/awards provide our team with added momentum and validation for the solution we are developing and the larger problem we seek to solve. Moving forward our focus is on marketing our solution to the energy industry and helping to scale auditing services, crucial to achieving climate targets by mid century. ” – Bertrand Rioux, Director, Two Ravens Energy & Climate Consulting

This prototype, which is built using Hyperledger Besu, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Bevel and Hyperledger Cactus, represents an important step towards creating an open climate accounting system that can be used to decarbonize corporate supply chains. By building a solution that can provide a free flow of trusted environmental data, we can create a more efficient marketplace that can unlock the power of green finance, consumer demand and government regulation to work together to decarbonize corporate supply chains. `

Click the CA2SIG One-Pager to learn more. We also invite you to visit the Climate Action and Accounting Wiki or join one of our bi-monthly meetings to learn about the different opportunities to get involved!

Sep 13
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Energy & Mines Digital Trust: The Open-Source Journey Towards a Clean, Resilient Economy

By Energy & Mines Digital Trust Blog, Climate, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Indy, Identity

As the world works towards climate goals, a government project from Canada is using digital trust technology to make it easier and more secure for natural resource companies to share sustainability data. 

Energy & Mines Digital Trust (EMDT) was established by the Government of British Columbia in recognition that we must do more to facilitate the transition to a clean, resilient economy. British Columbia (B.C.), Canada’s western-most province, was the first province in Canada to implement greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and mandatory sustainability reporting for major sectors of the provincial economy. As leaders in climate change legislation, B.C. is well positioned to explore cutting-edge technology in the journey towards a low-carbon economy. To improve trust, accuracy, and efficiency when sharing sustainability data, EMDT is coordinating a digital ecosystem – a network of organizations including environmental auditors, government bodies, mining and energy companies, and non-government organizations.

Improved Sustainability Reporting 

Currently, reporting sustainability data can be challenging. Data is difficult to exchange internationally, and consumers cannot always access, or trust, reported data, not to mention the administrative burden.  

EMDT’s digital ecosystem makes it possible to exchange sustainability information simply and securely, using digital credentials.

Digital credentials: 

  • Can be shared quickly and are tamper-proof. 
  • Allow companies to control their data. 
  • Guarantee the integrity of the information. 
  • Preserve privacy in business-to-business interactions. 

Digital Trust Ecosystem: EMDT Pilot  

EMDT has been testing and refining their technology and governance through multiple pilot projects to demonstrate how sustainability reporting can be made more efficient and trustworthy. Two pilot projects explore greenhouse gas emissions reporting in the mining sector and the natural gas sector. These pilots allow participants to test sharing and receiving digital credentials that include verified GHG emissions data for a specific mine site or natural gas facility.

*Because this is a pilot, the process depicted in this diagram does not satisfy or replace existing regulatory reporting obligations.

The greenhouse gas (GHG) mining pilot builds upon the existing regulatory emissions reporting process in British Columbia. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), an environmental auditor, issues a digital credential to Copper Mountain Mining Company containing verified GHG data. Copper Mountain can then use the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Report Verification Credential as part of their GHG emissions report to British Columbia’s Climate Action Secretariat. Copper Mountain can use the same digital credential to complete voluntary reporting to organizations such as the Open Earth Foundation. 

Increased Connections 

To facilitate the broad exchange of sustainability data, EMDT used Hyperledger Indy and Hyperledger Aries to create a highly interoperable tool, called Traction. Traction is an API accelerator built on top of Hyperledger Aries Cloud Agent Python (ACA-PY). Traction streamlines the process of sending and receiving digital credentials for governments and organizations.

Hyperledger Aries makes Traction highly interoperable with the technological solutions of companies and organizations around the world. “While two wallets might be different implementations or might be written in different code, they can still exchange data because both wallets use Aries,” explains Kyle Robinson, EMDT’s Senior Strategic Advisor. 

Traction makes it easier to integrate digital trust technology into existing lines of business: 

  • API-first Architecture: Traction is designed with an API-first architecture. This RESTful API allows for integration into existing line-of-business applications already being used by organizations. The Tenant user interface is built on this API to enable adoption prior to integration and for low-use functions.
  • Multitenancy: ACA-Py is implemented on a cloud-based server so multiple wallets can be managed with one Traction instance. 
  • Higher Scalability: Traction is open-source technology, encouraging collaborative refinement, faster release, and higher scalability of the technology.

Collaborative Climate Change Progress

With an increasing emphasis on responsibly sourced products, simplified methods for exchanging sustainability data ensures that B.C. natural resource providers can compete in a global market. Digital trust technology streamlines access to trustworthy sustainability data, allowing businesses, governments, and non-government organizations to work towards climate change goals more efficiently and effectively. Visit our website to learn more about Energy & Mines Digital Trust.

Sep 02
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Developer showcase series: Jason Sherman, Developer at Energy & Mines Digital Trust, Government of British Columbia

By Hyperledger Blog, Climate, Developer Showcase, Hyperledger Aries, Hyperledger Indy, Identity

Back to our Developer Showcase Series to learn what developers in the real world are doing with Hyperledger technologies. Next up is Jason Sherman, Developer at Energy & Mines Digital Trust, Government of British Columbia’s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation.

Give a bit of background on what you’re working on and how you got into blockchain

Energy & Mines Digital Trust (EMDT) is a pilot project enabling a collaborative digital ecosystem between the B.C. government, natural resource companies, and organizations around the world, making it simpler and more secure to share sustainability data. I am currently working on EMDT’s technology, called Traction. Traction is basically a layer above Hyperledger Aries  Cloud Agent Python (ACA-Py) that enables the Government of British Columbia to use our technology for line of business applications. This allows the government to onboard into the world of digital credentials easily, and to track their business data with their credential and presentation exchanges. 

What Hyperledger frameworks or tools are you using in your projects? Any new developments to share? Can you sum up your experience with Hyperledger?

We are using Hyperledger Aries Cloud Agent Python (ACA-Py) and Hyperledger Indy. Using Hyperledger frameworks has increased Traction’s interoperability, making it possible to incorporate a broader range of participants, tools, and technologies into the digital ecosystem EMDT is coordinating. We’re using Hyperledger’s open-source software to accelerate the Government of B.C.’s ability to adopt these tools. My experience with Hyperledger technologies is that things change quickly! And any problem or use case I identify is usually already being addressed.

What do you think is most important for Hyperledger Foundation to focus on in the next year?

I think the Hyperledger Foundation should focus on multiple ledger support (which is already underway) and onboarding users (not developers) of the implemented technology.

What advice would you offer other technologists or developers interested in getting started working on blockchain? 

There is a very steep learning curve, but it’s extremely worthwhile. You will very quickly identify areas where the technology could benefit your clients.

As Hyperledger’s projects continue to mature, what do you see as the most interesting technologies, apps, or use cases coming out as a result?

I am interested in the ability for Hyperledger projects to enable more automated business flows using truly trusted and tamper-proof data. The number of personnel hours that can be saved just through automated conversation and interchange of data programmatically is massive.

What’s the one issue or problem you hope blockchain can solve?

I am hopeful that blockchain has the potential to improve trust between businesses. By exchanging information using blockchain technology and digital credentials, the validity and origin of the credential can always be verified, and businesses can proceed with their interactions confidently.

Where do you hope to see Hyperledger and/or blockchain in five years?

I would hope to see blockchain as a viable and easily selected technology, along the lines of Postgresql or MongoDb. I would hope that blockchain could be adopted as a mainstream technology that development teams can look at as a solution to solve their problems.

What is the best piece of developer advice you’ve ever received?

Your code isn’t precious. 

What technology could you not live without?

Plumbing.

Aug 19
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Hyperledger Climate Action and Accounting Special Interest Group takes first place in the 2022 IBM Call for Code Green Practices Accelerator

By Bertrand Rioux, Director, Two Ravens Energy & Climate Consulting Blog, Climate, Special Interest Group, Supply Chain

IBM just announced the winning prototype to Reduce Methane Emissions with Supply Chain Tokens built by members of Hyperledger’s Climate Action and Accounting Special Interest Group (CA2SIG) has been awarded first place in the 2022 IBM Call for Code Green Practices Accelerator. Each year, the IBM Call for Code challenge seeks the most creative and innovative solutions to help address issues of sustainability.

See the 2022 IBM Call for Code Announcement here (Time Code: 3:52)

Reducing methane emissions by the oil and gas industry is a vital step to achieving global greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets in the short-term. More than 5% of global emissions are caused by leaked, vented and flared methane gas during oil and gas production. This is a valuable natural resource with a market value exceeding $50 billion. 

The team working on the winning prototype is developing an emission certification (token) platform for oil and gas production to support sustainable financing aligned with Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) investing. An ESG investor portal will help integrate verified methane emission metrics into performance-based financial instruments. Learn more about the Hyperledger Climate Action and Accounting SIG solution here. 

The prototype uses Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to support the management of production and emissions data. This includes both private and public network components. The former includes Hyperledger Fabric emission and product data channels to support the verification of high volume data from oil and gas facilities. Using Hyperledger Cactus, these enterprise data networks are securely connected to Ethereum-based decentralized applications. This combination of DLT protects the privacy and commercial sensitivity of industry data, while providing verifiable metrics that can be tracked and traded as part within the measurement economy for GHG emissions.

What’s next?

In the near-term, our team will focus their efforts on organizing public geospatial data on oil and gas assets and production into a structured database. This is connected to our ESG investor portal to compare a registry of oil and gas assets, and their operators, against benchmarks for U.S. oil and gas production. 

In the long-term, our team is designing an emission certification platform coordinated by a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) that will bring together verification professionals, standard setting bodies, data providers, and other industry stakeholders (e.g., regulators, voluntary carbon market providers).

Our vision is to provide the solutions needed to create an efficient marketplace for climate data that will incentivize corporations to decarbonize their supply chains by unlocking the combined incentives provided by green investment, government regulation, and consumer demand. To help accomplish this in the ongoing development of this prototype, the certificates issued to oil and gas producers are not only transferred to their downstream consumers such as energy and other commodity providers but extended into new certificates that can help provide a total value chain perspective on the waste emissions in the oil and gas supply chain.

Congratulations to CA2SIG community members Bertrand Roux, Si Chen, Arezki Djelouadji, and Sherwood Moore!

Want to get involved? We invite you to visit our Oil & Gas Methane Reductions Page, join our bi-monthly Peer Programming Calls, and/or our Bi-Monthly Climate Action and Accounting General Meetings!

Jul 26
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What’s on the agenda at Hyperledger Global Forum 2022

By Hyperledger Blog, Climate, Finance, Hyperledger Global Forum, Identity

We are just weeks away from gathering in Dublin, Ireland, for Hyperledger Global Forum 2022. The hard-working programming committee has put together a packed agenda with a line-up of business and technical talks and panels as well as workshops, demos and more. 

There will be more than 100 speakers covering everything from DLT operations to the future of NFTs & tokenomics and from the Metaverse to interoperability. Below are just a sampling of the topics and sessions on tap for the largest global gathering of the Hyperledger community, taking place September 12-14:

Climate

  • Blockchain – Sustainable Supply chain, SDG, Climate & Carbon Credit Tokenization – Kamlesh Nagware, Snapper Future Tech
  • Cactus Helps Cross-Industries Collaboration to Tackle Climate Change – Shingo Fujimoto, Fujitsu
  • Panel Discussion: Carbon Accounting Digital Trust Pilot With Hyperledger Indy/Aries – Nancy Norris, Government of British Columbia; Martin Wainstein, Open Earth Foundation; Kyle Robinson, Mines Digital Trust
  • Under National Strategy of Carbon Neutralization, How To Build Up a Whole MRV System With Hyperledger Fabric – Dong Ning, China Mobile

CBDC

  • Hyperledger Iroha: Enabling CBDC and FinTech Use Cases (Bakong CBDC in Cambodia) – Makoto Takemiya, Soramitsu
  • Towards a Scalable, Privacy-Preserving, and Regulatable CBDC Framework – Mark Rakhmilevich, Oracle
  • US Digital Currency: Opportunities, Challenges and Strategies – Jim Mason, DTCC
  • Creating a Retail CBDC Prototype With Hyperledger Fabric – Imre Kocsis, Budapest University of Technology and Economics
  • Making Distributed Ledgers Interoperable Using Weaver (Hyperledger Labs) – Venkatraman Ramakrishna, IBM
  • Workshop: Moving Central Bank Digital Currency from Conception to Reality with Hyperledger Technologies – Elli Androulaki & Angelo De Caro, IBM

Digital Identity

  • Enabling Interoperability and Multi-Ledger Support for Decentralized Identity Platforms – Hitarshi Buch, Wipro Technologies
  • Findy Agency — Highway to Verified Data Networks – Laura Vuorenoja & Harri Lainio, OP Financial Group
  • Digital Identity Using the vLEI – Christoph Schneider, Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF)
  • Blockchain, Biometrics and Geo-Location: Lessons Learned from the Implementation of Innovative Technologies at the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund – Dino Cataldo Dellaccio, United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund & Shashank Rai, United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC)
  • Hosted Discussion: Rhode Island Leads on Digital Identity Solutions with Hyperledger – Liz Tanner, State of Rhode Island & Jim Mason, DTCC
  • Last Mile Problem in Self-Sovereign Identity – Biometric Authentification and Device Independent Wallet for Hyperledger Indy – Non Kawana & Ken Naganuma, Hitachi, Ltd.
  • Workshop: How To Build a Self-Sovereign Identity Agent With Hyperledger Aries Framework JavaScript – Timo Glastra & Berend Sliedrecht, ANIMO & Jakub Koci, ABSA

Enterprise Blockchain

  • Taking on Challenges of Enterprise Blockchain Infrastructures – Dr. Ravi Chamria & Ghan Vashishtha, Zeeve
  • Latest Technology Adoption Trends in Enterprise Blockchain Projects – Jim Zhang, Kaleido & Tracy Kuhrt, Accenture
  • Solving Market Problems With Open Source Verifiable Credentials – Heather Dahl, Indicio & Mike Vesey, IdRamp
  • Design Patterns to Practically Scale Blockchain Networks – Deepika Karanji & Arun S M, Walmart Global Technology Services
  • Why You Shouldn’t Just Trust Your Blockchain – And Apply Critical System Design – Imre Kocsis, Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Hands-on ½ Day Workshops

  • Workshop: Moving Central Bank Digital Currency from Conception to Reality with Hyperledger Technologies – Elli Androulaki & Angelo De Caro, IBM
  • Workshop: How to Build Full-Stack Web3 Apps Faster with FireFly SuperNodes – Nicko Guyer, Kaleido
  • Workshop: Developing Interoperability Applications with Hyperledger Cactus – Peter Somogyvari, Accenture
  • Workshop : Developing Applications with Hyperledger Fabric – Josh Kneubuhl, IBM
  • Workshop: Hyperledger Bevel – Sownak Roy & Suvajit Sarkar, Accenture
  • Workshop: How To Build a Self-Sovereign Identity Agent With Hyperledger Aries Framework JavaScript – Timo Glastra & Berend Sliedrecht, ANIMO & Jakub Koci, ABSA

Come join us for these sessions and more as well as non-stop networking, knowledge sharing and collaboration. And a night of celebration at the historic Guinness Storehouse! View the full schedule, sponsors and activities at: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/hyperledger-global-forum/program/schedule/ 

Registration details are here. Save 20% registration with the code HGF22NWSLTR and, if you are not already a subscriber, please subscribe to our newsletters for the latest news and developer insights.

Still not sure why you should attend? Watch our Hyperledger Global Forum Returns video thanks to our returning Diamond Sponsor Accenture.

Apr 19
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Tackling Energy Security and Climate Change with Open Source and Blockchain

By Si Chen, Hyperledger Climate Action and Accounting SIG Blog, Climate, Special Interest Group

It started out as two separate projects at the Climate Accounting and Action SIG, a Hyperledger group focused on using blockchain and distributed ledger technologies (DLT’s) to solve climate problems.  

Bertrand Rioux, then a Research Fellow at the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, started a project to use Hyperledger and DLT’s to reduce methane emissions in oil and gas production.

Meanwhile, halfway around the world in Los Angeles, Si Chen, who had developed open source ERP and CRM software and runs an ecommerce company, started a project to reduce emissions in transportation and the supply chain with DLT’s.

Then the world changed.

War, trade embargoes, and soaring energy prices have sent countries around the world scrambling to secure their energy sources.  

Would this derail our last chance to reduce emissions and stop climate change?  

Amazingly, the answer is no in at least one important way: Reducing methane emissions from oil and gas production could both help improve energy security and help the climate at the same time.  

Here’s why: Each day at an oil or natural gas field, excess methane either leaks from the ground or is burnt (or “flared.”) This methane could also be sold as natural gas and used later  if it could be captured and transported. The amount is mind boggling.  According to FlareIntel, 260 billion cubic meters of methane is lost each year. This is 1.7 times the amount of natural gas Europe imports from Russia. It also has the climate impact of 1.3 billion cars — almost all the cars in the world, or nearly seven times the emissions of all the world’s airlines. 

Capturing and using this methane as natural gas would both increase the amount of energy available and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Yet while the energy industry is behind it with many new initiatives, a lack of data on methane emissions and lack of focus to reduce them has held back progress. To encourage greater momentum, several groups have started to produce certifications for responsibly sourced natural gas, but these certifications are often proprietary and opaque to the general public.

The Climate SIG rallied together to address this critical problem with a bold plan: An open certification of natural gas that could be transferred through the supply chain, running on open source software and through distributed ledgers, so that it could be transparent to regulators, investors, and the general public.  The solution involves four steps that combine the work of  Methane Reduction and Supply Chain Decarbonization SIG projects:

​​1.  Combine data from multiple sources, including company reports, government data sources, ground instrument readings, and satellite data, to calculate the total methane emissions from both leakage and flaring.
2.  Calculate added emissions impact from the combined methane emissions.
3.  Transfer the added emissions down the supply chain, from oil well to resellers to eventually the gas utilities.
4.  At each stage, certify the quality of the natural gas based on the added methane emissions.

This project has grown from the two original developers to a larger group. Even though the developers are from around the world and have never met in person, they’re working together the open source way. Through Zoom calls, wiki pages, and shared code repositories, they’ve been building a prototype for the Hyperledger Global Challenge while interviewing industry members, data providers, and government regulators.  

Being open source, the projects are open to new participants and contributors. For more information or to get involved, please see the Hyperledger Climate Action and Accounting SIG as well as the Methane Reduction and Supply Chain Decarbonization project pages.

Dec 15
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Hyperledger Mentorship Spotlight: Documentation and Use Cases for Climate Action

By Hyperledger Blog, Climate, Hyperledger Labs, Hyperledger Mentorship Program

The Hyperledger Mentorship Program is a structured hands-on learning opportunity for new developers who may otherwise lack the opportunity to gain exposure to Hyperledger open source development and entry to the technical community. These Mentorship Spotlights highlight the work done by the Mentors and the Mentees as part of their program participation. Learn more here.

 

Mentorship Project Title

Documentation and Use Cases for Climate Action

Description To improve documentation of the blockchain carbon accounting applications, including tutorials on how to develop and enhance the applications and use cases for the applications.
Status COMPLETED 
Difficulty LOW
Additional Details Learning Objectives, Expected Outcomes and Project Results available here.

Final Project Video

Mentee

Dounia Marbouh

Khalifa University

“The Hyperledger Mentorship Program was a great opportunity for me to grow and learn from others, especially my mentors. It is a chance to realize that in a world where many pieces of information can be simply “Googled,” there is still some knowledge that can only be gained through experience, and this mentorship program was the best example of that. Also, this experience focused on many competencies and talents, such as research, collaboration and communication, which are immensely invaluable. “

Mentors

Si Chen

Open Source Strategies, Inc.

Sherwood Moore

CA2 SIG Co-chair

Si Chen

“In this project, our different backgrounds came together to take us a lot further. We found out that the carbon credits and offsets market is much more complicated than originally anticipated. While many people want to use blockchains to improve the liquidity of the carbon credits market by making transactions more efficient, what the market really needs is greater trust in the quality of the credits and lower costs to bring them to market. We also learned that a successful mentorship is a partnership, where everyone—mentors and mentees—need to come prepared to both contribute and learn.”

Sherwood Moore

“I really enjoyed this opportunity to mentor, and I found that I learned from the experience as much as I shared my expertise. I really enjoyed being able to share from my experience conducting market research and identifying opportunities by tapping into the knowledge of the stakeholders within it. At the same time, it was really interesting to learn more about the voluntary carbon market, which was the focus of our research, as well as the world of academic publications, which was the end goal and deliverable of our work. All in all, a very successful internship project, and I look forward to participating in more.”

A special thanks to the Hyperledger member companies for funding this important program. To learn more about our Hyperledger Mentorship Program and how you can participate in our next cohort, head over to our program overview page on the Hyperledger wiki.

Jul 29
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Enterprises Can No Longer Take Shortcuts with Climate and Social Impact, and Distributed Ledgers Provide Proven Accelerators for Change

By Anthony Day, Blockchain Partner, IBM Blog, Climate, Hyperledger Fabric, Supply Chain

One of the few benefits we have seen emerge from the recent COVID-19 pandemic is an amplification of focus and desire for accountability around corporate and government sustainability, or “ESG” (Environmental, Social and Governance) metrics.

However, sustainability must move beyond commitments and transition into action. Sustainable action. Sustainable from process, technology and commercial standpoints; and helping those in a position of power (who have not traditionally been used to prioritising investments based on ESG metrics) to make difficult choices to drive action.

Furthermore, as we look at “earth system” trends like CO2 emissions, surface temperature, ocean acidification, tropical forest loss and many others we see exponential increases in harm and damage over recent years. In other words, acceleration.

Speaking of action, if we are to make any dent in these exponential trends, we need to aim for a more profound impact than incremental improvements to individual corporate metrics such as a10% reduction in plastic packaging, 15% increase in use of recycled materials or move to hybrid vehicle fleets. Aiming higher and working together across entire value chains is key and so is creating systems that enable collaboration, tracking, reporting and remuneration. The latter is important as businesses must remain commercially sustainable, or we will not see participation and investment amongst small and medium-sized enterprises.. 

Despite what some vendors say , there is no “single app” that addresses the wide spectrum of sustainability requirements as the use cases are varied and more will emerge. 

Many corporations are embarking on internal “data gathering” exercises to assess their Scope 1 emissions (direct emissions from owned or controlled sources) so they can have a fact base from which to then take action in a couple of years. Often they are quietly hoping Scope 3 emissions (other indirect emissions that occur in a company’s value chain) will go away. In my opinion, this approach is far from the immediate and meaningful “action” needed to drive change.

At the core, we need to enable more connected supply chains from which we can develop and co-create applications that share, automate, track and integrate with a multitude of different processes and IT systems. 

Blockchain and distributed ledgers have proven themselves to be appropriate architectures for these multi-party platforms as they bring together identity, standards, automation of activity, aggregation of data, scalability, transparency and, importantly, incentivisation. That’s a lot more than just a “fancy data store.”

We can re-use or take inspiration from existing multi-party systems that are already addressing known climate and social issues, work together as networks of companies to have greater impact. And we can start today, not in two years’ time when we’ve completed our internal data audit.

Here are some examples of where distributed ledgers, and Hyperledger Fabric in particular, are already being used to address ESG issues that are cross-industry, cross-border and can be used as impact accelerators.

  • Waste Reduction – Nearly half of all fruit and vegetables produced globally are wasted each year (source: United Nations): IBM Food Trust originated as a platform for managing food safety, but the data stored on the platform across farmers, transport companies, manufacturers and retailers allows for more granular tracking of freshness, dwell time, conditions in storage and transit, which can be used to optimise distribution, reduce waste, and even extend shelf life.
  • Material Circularity – Production of materials we use every day account for 45% of the CO2 emissions (source: EuroParl): Plastic Bank has created a circular economy platform around collection, processing and sale of “Social Plastic” to large manufacturers, with a focus on empowerment and financial reward for collectors in developing countries. Mitsui and Asahi Kasei have also recently announced development of DLT-based circularity marketplaces to record, track and incentivise their suppliers and customers to increase re-use of plastic and chemical feedstock and provide transparency to regulators where taxation of imported plastics is coming into force.
  • Social Impact – Almost half of consumption-related emissions are generated by just 10% of people globally (source: Project Drawdown): Farmer Connect has its origins in traceability of commodities such as coffee and cocoa and provision of self-sovereign identity applications for farmers. Interestingly, Farmer Connect is using its  “first mile” digitisation expertise to bring customers (and brands) closer to social impact projects in developing countries and enable crowdfunding of local projects.
  • Renewable Energy Consumption – Share of renewables in global electricity generation was 29% in 2020 (source: IEA): Renewables present an opportunity for low-cost, abundant energy but have challenges in scaling, particularly in balancing supply and demand. Equigy is a multi-country “crowd balancing” platform comprising energy companies in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Italy. Equigy uses blockchain technology to access, via aggregators, new sources of electricity from the owners of consumer-based devices and is working towards incorporating use of decentralised storage with private or commercial vehicles and batteries.
  • Carbon Capture – In practice, some sectors will simply not be able to achieve net-zero emissions without carbon capture (source: IEA): Newlight Technologies recently launched a range of “regenerative, carbon-negative” fashion products made from air-captured carbon, and with the origin of the carbon capture and authenticity of individual products stored and traceable on a distributed ledger. While manufacture of sunglasses is not analogous to all sectors, the ability to track, certify and share material properties in increasingly regulated supply chains is becoming a critical core competence and can be a further step towards scaling voluntary carbon markets.

The important factor here is not that blockchain applied to these domains solved a problem but rather that these climate and social issues are multi-party problems that require entities, activities and processes to be supported by technology to drive and sustain change. 

Hopefully, in this article we have demonstrated that the problems are clear, real and addressable; that multi-party collaboration platforms are feasible to implement; and that there are technology accelerators available to enterprises and governments that are proven and scalable. So there should be no further cause for inaction…

Cover image by Tumisu from Pixabay 

May 11
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Climate Change Action: Five Ways to Get Involved in Our Global Climate Accounting Efforts

By Sherwood Moore, co-chair, Hyperledger Climate Action & Accounting Special Interest Group Blog, Climate, Special Interest Group

The Hyperledger Climate Action & Accounting Special Interest Group (CA2SIG) is part of a growing ecosystem of innovators that is working to make global climate accounting a reality. We are an Open Source group working with a community of talented professionals that are tackling the technologies, frameworks, standards, partnerships, and use cases it will take to get there. With the support and know-how from community members such as the Linux Foundation, Open Earth Foundation and Climate Chain Coalition, we are making good progress, but we need your help. Whether you are a blockchain developer, product manager, research, analyst or subject matter expert in policy, environment, industry, etc., there is a role for you to play. We invite you to join us and take part in catalysing the most radical collaborative movement in human history, one that will help facilitate the investment of $50 trillion dollars over the next 30 years to secure the future of humanity.

Here are a five ways you can get involved:

  • Join the Standards Working Group to help design and implement the “protocols and standards” needed to ensure that climate accounting data can function as part of a global interoperable layer of information sharing. This group is actively looking for real use cases to design for and test against.
  • Join the Consumer Disclosure Working Group to create solutions to help make consumers aware of the environmental impact they make in their daily lives. This group is currently developing a data-driven sustainability score for  companies and consumers to help quantify how sustainable a product really is. This group is actively looking for a company or companies to partners with to develop a real world proof of concept.
  • Join the Operating System for Climate Action to help build tools to record emissions (right now from energy data from utility bills) and allow emissions and offsets to be tokenized and traded. This group is also working to build a Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) to allow users to vote collectively on climate action. (Read more about this effort here: Help Us Scale Up Our Operating System for Climate Action.)
  • Take a leadership role by taking on one of the blockchain projects listed on the Project Ideas Board. The Climate Action & Accounting SIG and Hyperledger Labs are here to provide support to help you launch any new project. Take a moment to explore some of the projects that are waiting for leadership:
    • Vehicle zero emission travel network
    • Data center carbon calculator
    • Personal carbon offsets calculator (based on actual data and not surveys). 
  • Finally, if you have your own idea for an Open Source climate project, click here to share it with us, and we can work with you to explore how we can help you find the support and expertise you need to get started. 

To learn more about the Climate Action & Accounting Special Interest Group (CA2SIG) and how to join our community of contributors, take a moment to explore our “How to Contribute” page and join our bi-monthly General Meetings to introduce yourself and meet the group.

Apr 19
Love0

Help Us Scale Up Our Operating System for Climate Action

By Sherwood Moore and Si Chen, Hyperledger Climate Action and Accounting Special Interest Group Blog, Climate, Special Interest Group

With the enormous challenge that climate change represents, Earth Day 2021 brings mixed feelings. On the one hand, we should all be encouraged by the growing commitments to climate action around the world. On the other hand, there is a huge amount of work to be done and there is the question about how much any one person can do to help.

As open source developers, we decided not to just sit and watch. Instead, we’re taking action where we can make the biggest impact. We are writing code and we invite you to join us!

Blockchain developers can get involved and help the Hyperledger Climate Action and Accounting Special Interest Group develop a carbon accounting tool that can answer questions such as: Can we trust the climate pledges made regularly by companies large and small? Are our cities really achieving their emissions targets? We invite you to help us use distributed ledger technology to solve some of these climate challenges.

We’re building a set of open source tools for an “operating system for climate action” in the blockchain-carbon-accounting lab. There are three key modules:

  • An immutable data channel built with Hyperledger Fabric to record emissions data, using energy data from utility bills and audited emissions factors from the EPA and EEA.
  • A tokens trading network built with the Ethereum ERC-1155 multi-token standard smart contracts that allow emissions and offsets to be tokenized and traded.
  • A Distributed Autonomous Organization (DAO) built with the Compound DAO to allow users to vote collectively on climate action. 

We recently deployed the Hyperledger Fabric utility emissions and Ethereum emissions tokens networks into production to track and offset our own emissions.

Figure 1. Hyperledger Fabric Explorer shows the Fabric Network for Recording Emissions 

Figure 2: An ERC-1155 token of actual emissions from a utility bill, tokenized using the Emissions Tokens Network deployed on xDai, an energy-efficient Ethereum Layer 2 network.

Figure 3: Details of the transactions of Emissions Token Network on xDai

Head to github to check out the code. You can see the network fully in action here:

Next, we plan to build a network that allows members to record and offset their emissions while validating carbon offsets through a DAO. As part of this project, we will be creating solutions to:

  • Improve trust in emissions accounting by using real data and verified emissions factors.
  • Validate carbon offsets efficiently through transparency and collective voting.
  • Allow smaller projects to earn carbon offsets by reducing cost.

How You Can Get Involved

There are several ways to get involved with the blockchain-carbon-accounting lab:

  1. Start by subscribing to the Climate SIG mailing list for updates and meeting notifications.
  2. Join our bi-weekly Peer Programming Zoom call for developers on Mondays at 9 AM US Pacific time (UTC-07:00 America/Los Angeles.) Please check the calendar for the next call. 
  3. Check out the good first issues from our blockchain-carbon-accounting in Hyperledger-labs and feel free to contribute a fix for one that looks interesting to you.
  4. Apply to be a mentee for one of the four paid mentorship projects related to the lab to improve documentation, add automated testing, work on Fabric-Ethereum integration, and improve client side identity/security.

The Hyperledger community is doing other things to address climate change, so you are encouraged to check out all of the ways to get involved with the Climate Action and Accounting SIG.

Copyright © 2022 The Linux Foundation®. All rights reserved. Hyperledger Foundation, Hyperledger, and the other Hyperledger Foundation trademarks are trademarks of The Linux Foundation. For a list of Hyperledger Foundation trademarks, please see our Trademark Usage page. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

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