Eco Intent – KeeganD
For this project, I’ve developed a framework for a blockchain based system that rewards and helps businesses with large carbon footprints to reduce their environmental impact.
Now I know what you’re probably thinking, “Does this kid know anything besides blockchain?” and while that question may certainly be debatable, I can explain myself. I genuinely believe that blockchain and similar technology (separate from cryptocurrencies) will be extremely prevalent in the future and so I set out in this class to challenge myself to apply it to every sector and problem I come across.
So real quick, just to recap, a blockchain is nothing more than a digital, super secure database. For Bitcoin, the database works as a ledger of transactions, but the technology itself is much more general and broad as it can be used as any type of database or archive.
So with that said, my idea is a broad one, it could be run by the government and reward the business in tax cuts, or it could be an independent company that rewards companies by more direct means, such as with new equipment, grants, and discounts with partnered businesses. This is probably my most vague project yet, but it’s because it could be done in so many different ways and I really don’t know what would work best in practice so I want to cover all the bases.
The general idea would go something like this, every farm, factory, office building, etc. that wants to participate in the program basically signs up to allow things like their electricity usage, waste disposal, etc. to all recorded on a blockchain (setup by whoever is running this program, government or private entity) as well as disclosing things like their profit margins and total produced goods or services. There would be some sort of formula that the governing body ran all this info through that determines yours “environmental rating”. The equation would roughly be something like (total beneficial output)/(total environmental impact) so that the rating is a measure of how clean a company can be while still being productive, the reason for this is expanded on below. When a company signed up for this program they would be analyzed for a week to a month’s time to determine a base environmental rating. Let’s say a company began with a rating of 65/100, we would approve them for the program as a company with a lot of room for improvement, equip their facilities with whatever is needed to log the appropriate information on our blockchain. This may include sending an employee to do frequent checkups to make sure no foul play is being done.
When we approve them for the program and do the initial week-month of determining their base rating, we would also layout “goals” basically meaning, if you raise your score to 70/100 we will provide X tax breaks, or Y discounts on good’s with these partners, etc. If you raise it to 80/100, you’ll earn tax cut Y, etc. etc.
The reason we would reward companies based on a ratting like I’ve proposed above, rather than just on how much they reduce their carbon footprint. Is because it would be easy for a business to simply scale back production so they have a smaller environmental impact, but the goal of this system would be to reduce the carbon footprint per every good or service produced. Be it agriculture, manufacturing, or R&D, we want to make sure that companies maintain if not improve upon their efficiency while simultaneously reducing their impact on the environment.
The last part of all this would be that we would actually work with our clients to help them improve. We would have an entire sector devoted to providing tools, resources and ideas on reducing carbon footprints.
Now this is just a side idea I had, I don’t know if this would have more benefits than downsides as compared to just working with the US dollar, but there is something to be said for self-feeding economies, so a possibility to explore would be to pay out all rewards in the form of tokens on the blockchain. Now I know what you’re thinking, no it’s not just another bitcoin. Using a cryptocurrency, in this case, would have no benefit over a fiat currency. It would literally be more like a token, that can only be redeemed on our website for everything from equipment to consultation. This coin would not be listed on any “exchanges” and would therefore not have a specific USD value. It would be completely exclusive to exchanging for things that aid your business in being environmentally friendly. We could either allow it to be accepted on parter company sites as well, or simply host their products on our site. (I’m thinking in the realm of companies that actually manufacture eco-friendly equipment, such as solar panels.) One potential benefit of this would be that you can be 100% sure that the rewards we provide are being used for further environmental progress.
As for a budget, I hope you dont think I’m taking the easy way out when I say there’s really no way I could estimate this… This could be anything from a project in a large city to an innternational service. I’d also have no clue where to start estimating costs of certain things.
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Damn, Keegan. Great vision. Only thing that this needs to really work is to make sure the incentives to put yourself in this system of monitoring out-weight the incentives to stay hidden and away from the public eye. I definitely think companies are becoming greener because of public scrutiny, but this could help the movement even more. Creating the infrastructure to make it easier for companies to go greener is the golden idea, I think this has potential.