The current incentivisation method in environmental sustainability is upside-down - people and companies who are choosing to balance Purpose, Profit and Planet by investing in climate-positive projects are bearing the financial burden of doing so.
These companies should be receiving tangible, financial returns on their investment into the Planet as good actors for the environment. Yet traditional models of assessing financial returns lack the framework to ably capture and translate the value (or in some cases, the cost) of environmental impact by human behaviour as it requires cross-disciplinary expertise across science and technology.
Sustainability, such as energy management, environmental protection, and climate change mitigation, is frequently mentioned as an area where blockchain technology can be applied. By doing so, accurate and transparent incentives can be offered to corporations or individuals, inducing them to voluntarily participate in activities that produce and consume energy more effectively and protect the environment.
While corporations and individuals act in their own interest, they can help solve global environmental problems at the same time. To build such an ecosystem in a sustainable manner, the number of participants should be large enough to create a network effect, which will make the utility of each participant higher than the cost of participating in the ecosystem.
Climate change is real, and it is happening at a pace far beyond our ability to comprehend its true impact. In terms of mortality cost, one human will die for each additional 4,000 tons of CO2 emitted in the atmosphere (according to The Guardian's study).
