How to Leverage New Technology for Reducing Carbon Emissions and Plastic Waste
The recent conversation at Davos centered around the critical importance of combating climate change by replacing destructive systems with both sustainable and economically viable solutions. In fact, our CEO, Yuval Rooz, recently participated on a panel hosted by Global Blockchain Business Council and the non-profit open innovation group, Odyssey, focused on how emerging technologies, particularly blockchain and smart contracts, can enable collaboration and outcompete destructive systems.
As Yuval expressed at Davos, “A lot of people talk about how blockchain is going to change the world, but I actually think that what we can do by educating people about blockchain is change how humans interact with one another.” This has been on my mind as I head to The Hague for the Odyssey Hackathon Connect event this week with our partners at VMware to determine how blockchain technology and our Daml smart contract language can help individuals, governments and corporations achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The effects of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) due to rising carbon emissions are leading to irreversible damage to the planet at an alarming rate. Many of the effects of GHGs are turning out to exceed the worst case scenarios predicted by climate change scientists, including the rate of glacial melting, sea level rise and increase in ambient and ocean temperatures. As a result of these terrestrial and marine changes, countries and cities around the world are striving to cope with heat waves, wildfires, storms and floods, air quality and public health crises.
The numbers alone make the case for why we need to act with urgency. In 2019, about 43.1 billion tons of CO2 from human activities were emitted into the atmosphere, while 8 million tons of plastic ended up in our oceans. So how can we help empower individuals, governments and corporations to combat this? By fostering more efficient and profitable circular economies designed to continuously and creatively re-use, re-invent, and re-purpose resources. These ecosystems will inevitably generate new business models that operate sustainably, through collaboration, distributed trust, and equitability.
In addition to the social and ecological benefits, industry stakeholders can also gain significant economic and business value from robust solutions in this space. Waste from single-use plastic packaging costs the global economy an estimated $100+ billion a year in lost value, while innovations in low-emission and carbon-neutral energy sources represent a multi-trillion dollar investment opportunity in emerging industries.
Smart contracts and blockchain technology can facilitate these models by enabling wide-spread community partnerships to build a better future. Global leaders in business and government need to collaborate to support mass adoption of compelling solutions that can combat the wastefulness and pollution endemic in existing destructive systems.
As an innovator and first mover in the smart contract and blockchain space, I am excited to represent Digital Asset in supporting teams to employ the unique properties of Daml with VMware blockchain deployment, including immutability, auditability, security, and traceability. Together we can empower consumers and organizations alike to make informed decisions around carbon emissions and the repurposing of ocean plastics, as well as build systems to enable transparency on a grander scale.
By creating a platform to measure alignment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the global call to keep the temperature of the planet from rising above two degrees, corporations can support governments by effectively and efficiently tracking and monitoring carbon emissions. Using Daml and VMware Blockchain, teams will be able to rapidly innovate to build solutions that combat the most pressing issues facing our planet. Collectively, this is what we are setting out to do by supporting the “From Plastic Pollution to Upcycling Economy” and “Consumer and Organization-Driven Decarbonization” challenges at the Odyssey Hackathon. Dozens of teams and industry stakeholders involved in these tracks have the opportunity to create - and adopt - transformative solutions addressing the most challenging ecological and economic problems today, while generating significant investment and business opportunities.
Join us this week in The Hague for the Daml & VMware Blockchain Meetup at Odyssey Connect, February 5th at 6:00pm and participate in the hackathon on April 3 - 5 to turn these goals into our shared reality.
Join our Meetup @ Odyssey Connect!
by Talia Klein
February 3, 2020
