Images of crypto nerds, get-rich-quick schemes, and silly ideas to replace traditional art likely flash through the minds of the average person when they hear the words “blockchain technology.” But this strange technology has far more applications than just financial transactions. Blockchain technology is emerging as a useful tool in the world of environmental conservation, creating a promising intersection between the fields of technology and sustainability that could help humanity slow Earth’s decline.

What is Blockchain Technology?

Blockchain technology is a digital ledger system that is completely decentralized by being spread across multiple different computers. In a typical system, a single party, like a bank, has control of the entirety of the ledger, and therefore controls all transactions. Blockchain technology allows the record of transactions to be distributed among every user, where each new transaction is added to a data structure which contains the previous group of transactions, and all of those transactions’ individual metadata —a block— thus chaining them together, making, you guessed it, blockchain. 

All parties involved in transactions are able to remain completely anonymous through various cryptography techniques. Once transactions go through, they cannot be altered, allowing for a secure system of monetary transactions. Blockchain technology is primarily used by cryptocurrencies at the moment to facilitate safe, secure, and transparent transactions.

What Can Blockchain Technology Do For the Environment?

Carbon Credits

Ever heard of carbon credits? Well, the meaning is in the name. Carbon credits are purchasable tokens that offset a buyer’s emissions by contributing to environmental causes. With blockchain technology, carbon credit tracking can be streamlined and made completely transparent, allowing users to track their carbon emissions, control their carbon footprint, and contribute to environmental sustainability. Through the verification of one's carbon offset efforts, blockchain technology can greatly reduce the difficulty of trying to lower one’s carbon footprint.

In the world of skiing, this can be applied to offset the emissions from the long commutes that many skiers make to shred at their favorite resorts. Blockchain technology firms could intersect with the automobile industry in the future to give drivers the opportunity to offset their emissions immediately after a long trip.

Supply Chains

Through transparent transactions, traceability, and regulation, blockchain technology can reduce inefficiency, prevent sourcing fraud, and provide consumers with the power to identify exactly where their products come from.

Blockchain technology would allow skiers and snowboarders alike to know where their apparel is coming from, the amount of emissions it would take for it to reach them, and the resources utilized in the production of skiwear apparel and the manufacturing of skis. For the millions of purchases that occur every year in this sector, this could be a gamechanger for the industry’s sustainability.

Energy Trading

Peer-to-peer transactions, what blockchain promotes, allows for parties to directly trade excess renewable energy, giving parties the ability to reduce their use of fossil fuels and use sustainable alternatives to power their firms. Ski resorts could begin to trade excess energy, reducing the overall carbon footprint that is generated by operating such a facility. 

Data Management

Blockchain technology is able to securely store quite a bit of data in a safe and efficient manner. 
With the intersection of environmental data, such as climate mapping and prediction, water and snow levels, and wildlife populations, the blockchain would allow generations to be able to easily access stored information that is completely tamper-resistant. This would also make it far easier for researchers and lawmakers to address environmental issues through data analysis and composition.

Ski resorts could use these techniques to map and model their footprint on local wildlife populations as well as analyze their effect on local water reserves, and use that information to make decisions about  transitioning to more sustainable operations.

Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrency projects can contribute to a variety of causes, such as SolarCoin.

SolarCoin creates a token for every single megawatt of solar energy produced, incentivizing the use of sustainable energy alternatives.
Ski resorts could employ similar practices by allowing consumers to purchase tickets with certain sustainable currencies.

Blockchain technology is widely applicable to many fields, and its potential to contribute significantly to environmental sustainability is clear. As this technology evolves, both technologists and conservationists alike are excited to see what blockchain brings.