Blockchain technology is gaining traction in the climate and environmental sectors. Its unique characteristics offer innovative solutions to the pressing challenges these industries face.
One of the primary advantages of blockchain is its ability to enhance transparency and integrity. It enables real-time visibility into emissions reduction and sequestration efforts, which can significantly bolster the effectiveness and authenticity of these initiatives. Moreover, blockchain can also help in tackling the issue of greenwashing, where organisations falsely portray themselves as environmentally friendly. By providing transparent, verifiable data about an organisation’s environmental impact, blockchain can expose such deceptive practices.
Another valuable attribute of blockchain is its capacity to increase energy efficiency and reduce waste. This is particularly important in the energy sector, where blockchain can improve safety, transparency, and trust among participants, thereby offering a new solution for grid stability issues. For instance, it can facilitate the integration of renewable energy sources, like solar rooftops and heat pumps, by creating a transparent and efficient market for energy trading.
Blockchain technology can democratise ownership and foster greater community participation in climate actions. Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), which have no central leadership and are governed from the bottom up by a community, with their rules recorded on the blockchain, offer a new model of governance. This model can engage more people in climate action, driving a collective, inclusive approach towards environmental conservation.
Here’s a detailed roundup of the top web3 projects in the environmental industry, highlighting their unique features and explaining why there is a growing movement focused on environmental issues. These projects use decentralised technologies, such as blockchain and cryptocurrencies, to address a variety of environmental challenges and promote sustainable development.
1. Nori
Nori is a blockchain-based carbon removal marketplace aiming to combat climate change by incentivising carbon removal from the atmosphere. The platform connects farmers practising regenerative agriculture with buyers seeking to offset their carbon footprint. Nori issues Nori Carbon Removal Tonnes (NRT) tokens, representing one tonne of CO2 removed from the atmosphere and stored in soil or biomass. Nori’s decentralised nature ensures transparency and trust between participants, encouraging more people to take part in carbon offsetting initiatives.
2. Earth Dollar
Earth Dollar is a blockchain-based cryptocurrency with a focus on sustainability and social impact. It aims to fund global environmental and social initiatives through a decentralised financial system. Earth Dollar tokens are designed to encourage eco-conscious spending and investments, providing financial rewards to users for their sustainable actions. The project highlights the potential of web3 technologies to enable a new economic model that rewards environmental stewardship.
3. Regen Network
Regen Network is a decentralised ecological knowledge platform that provides a verifiable, open-source record of ecological data. It uses blockchain technology to incentivise ecological regeneration and facilitate transparent and efficient transactions between stakeholders. The Regen token is a utility token that powers the ecosystem and can be earned by contributing to the platform’s objectives. By leveraging web3 technologies, Regen Network fosters collaboration and knowledge sharing among environmental stakeholders worldwide.
4. Plastic Bank
Plastic Bank is a global platform that tackles plastic pollution by incentivising plastic waste collection and recycling. The project uses blockchain technology to create a transparent and secure token-based reward system for waste collectors. Participants can exchange collected plastic for digital tokens, which can be used to purchase goods and services or converted to local currency. Plastic Bank highlights the potential of web3 technologies to drive social and environmental change at a grassroots level.
5. Treejer
An Iranian project, Treejer Protocol connects tree funders to rural planters worldwide. They employ blockchain-based smart contracts to collect funding for trees and distribute it transparently to planters and other stakeholders.
6. KlimaDao
Klima DAO is developing a carbon-backed digital currency, with each token supported by one tonne of verified, tokenized carbon reduction or removal. Klima DAO’s goal is to expedite the price appreciation of carbon assets, forcing companies and economies to adapt more quickly to climate change and making low-carbon technologies and carbon-removal projects more profitable.
7. SolarCoin
SolarCoin is a global rewards programme for solar electricity generation. The project incentivises solar energy production by issuing SolarCoins, a blockchain-based digital currency. Solar energy producers receive one SolarCoin for every megawatt-hour (MWh) of solar energy generated, promoting the adoption of clean energy. SolarCoin demonstrates how web3 technologies can drive behavioural change and support the transition to a more sustainable energy future.
8. Plastiks
Plastiks is an NFT marketplace aiming to bridge the gap between plastic producers and recyclers. It utilises a smart contract approach to merge NFTs with real recycling data from waste management companies globally, setting a new standard for compensation, traceability, and recovery of plastic production.
9. Coorest
Coorest is aiming to disrupt the voluntary carbon markets by allowing landowners to tokenise their trees (NFTrees). All trees are monitored by satellites and CO2 tokens can be traded on the open market.
10. Blockchain for Climate Foundation
This foundation’s goal is to “put the Paris Agreement on the Blockchain” by connecting the National Carbon Accounts globally to enable cross-border collaboration in emissions reductions. They aim to drive down global emissions by building a secure, transparent mechanism that incentivises emissions reductions.
11. RVSR
The RVRS token contributes a portion of proceeds from every transaction to support regenerative climate projects. So far, they have aided 13 projects working on water conservation, biodiversity, climate education, supporting bees, water pollution, soil restoration, tree planting, and carbon sequestration.
12. EcoLabs
EcoLabs is a community of creatives working at the intersection of sustainability, art, and technology. They produce creative projects about environmental sustainability sold on-chain as NFTs and in the physical world. Their projects to date include the Phoney Plants NFT project and The World After Us short documentary.
13. Celo Climate Collective
This coalition of organisations focuses on the intersection of web3 and climate action. They aim to enhance the capacity for regenerative applications on the Celo blockchain, with a long-term goal to back Celo stablecoins with tokenized natural assets.
The growing movement focused on environmental issues can be attributed to several factors, including increasing awareness of the consequences of climate change, the loss of biodiversity, and the depletion of natural resources. As a result, there is a heightened sense of urgency to develop innovative solutions that can address these pressing concerns.
The growing number of web3 projects in the environmental industry is a testament to the potential of these technologies to drive positive change. By leveraging the unique features of web3, these projects aim to create a more sustainable and environmentally-conscious future. The biggest challenge this projects will have is to reach beyond current niche web3 audiences to the masses where there is significant interest in the space. Get their marketing strategies right and the movement will continue to gain momentum, we can expect to see even more innovative solutions that harness the power of decentralisation, transparency, and incentivisation to tackle pressing environmental issues.
