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IBM To Use Blockchain To Fight Climate Change

Poker cards, Dices, and Bitcoin /AP IBM is betting big on blockchain technology to boost global cooperation for tackling climate change. IBM...

Poker cards, Dices, and Bitcoin /AP
IBM is betting big on blockchain technology to boost global cooperation for tackling climate change. IBM has made strides toward bringing blockchain into the mainstream by focusing on the benefits it offers enterprise users without abandoning its green roots. Fashion brand Covalent announced yesterday that its customers can now track the supply chain and carbon footprint of its products by using IBM Blockchain technology on IBM LinuxONE. And this is just the tip of Big Blue’s blockchain for change iceberg.  

Big Blue’s Blockchain for Climate Change

IBM has long championed a greener, cleaner economy, having released its first annual Corporate Environmental Report in 1990, and then two-years later partnering with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to launch the Energy Star program.

The vendor’s green vision for blockchain technology dates back to 2016, when IBM Blockchain was leveraged by Walmart to determine food products that needed to be recalled and what would later form the IBM Food Trust network. Today, some of the biggest consumer brands including Dole, Nestlé, and Walmart are among the companies using the cloud-based blockchain service as a way to share food data and derive value from the contributions of others.

IBM Blockchain is based on the Linux Foundation‘s Hyperledger Fabric. IBM partnered with Beijing-based Energy-Blockchain Labs to build a blockchain-based carbon asset management platform to help enterprises generate carbon assets more efficiently.

IBM then partnered with Veridium Labs, a startup that creates environment-related cryptocurrencies, to turn carbon credits – tradable instruments aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions – into digital tokens using the Stellar blockchain. Where Veridium saw an ally in Big Blue’s expertise in the area of energy-specific blockchain networks, IBM saw an opportunity to put blockchain-based business transactions on public display.

In more recent years, IBM has worked with Plastic Bank to develop a blockchain-powered system to convert plastic into a new kind of currency that users can exchange for goods such as food or diapers.  

Why Blockchain

Blockchain technology uses a distributed database that effectively creates a tamper-proof ledger. Once entered, transactions cannot be changed, creating an immutable record that simultaneously exists on every computer belonging to the same network and updates with every transaction. And because the ledger exists everywhere all at once, it is incredibly difficult to hack.

Adding to the appeal is the ability for users to do business directly with each other without involving a central authority like a bank to validate transactions. The ability to authenticate transactions of any kind and build trust into systems that record transactions has brought blockchain out from under the shadow of cryptocurrency and into enterprise strategy.  And this is where climate change comes in.

While there is no technological magic bullet to solve climate change, blockchain technology has all the potential to play a critical role in fundamentally changing how climate mitigation and adaptation outcomes are measured, reported, and verified (MRV) with its greatest asset: transparency.