In aid delivery, the last mile is the most crucial. This final stage, the ‘last mile’, is the final stretch before the aid reaches the hands of those who need it. However, while it’s arguably the most important step, it’s usually the most challenging, too. Various and often complex obstacles such as logistical inefficiencies, violence and corruption regularly inhibit aid from reaching the final recipient. This, in turn, costs logistics companies time and money, and has a huge impact on the overall trust people have in aid as a whole.
Luckily, some big names are stepping in to address these persistent challenges. Track & Trust, unveiled by Web3 innovator Datarella in partnership with humanitarian aid organisation Aid Pioneers and financially backed by the European Space Agency, is the first tracking technology designed for last-mile aid delivery. The technology has been specifically designed for use in crisis regions with poor connectivity.
Traditional systems for supplying aid rely on continuous internet activity to track the initial stages of the aid’s journey. When this internet is no longer available or the connection becomes weak, as is so often the case in remote locations, conflict zones with destroyed infrastructure and remote regions lacking reliable internet access, the aid can’t be tracked.
The consequences of this are far-reaching. Of course, on the one hand, the fact that the process of delivering aid is complicated and expensive is a huge disincentive for logistics service providers. On the other, without reliable last-mile tracking, aid is vulnerable to being lost, stolen or misdirected, leaving communities without crucial supplies. These logistical and corruption challenges have also often undermined trust in humanitarian aid (AidPioneers, 2024), making donors and investors hesitant to fund projects, further weakening support systems for communities in dire need of support.
"This is where Track & Trust steps in," explains Rebecca Johnson, Datarella’s CTO. "The technology we developed with our partners enables effortless tracking of last-mile delivery, even in the most challenging environments."
Aid delivery trucks are fitted with Track & Trust mesh nodes; Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) devices with multiple radio systems that can receive and save relevant data such as arrival status, delays or damages inputted by the drivers.
When trucks equipped with these devices pass each other, useful information regarding shipment status and GNSS data is shared between them without needing an internet connection. Then, when they reach satellite upload link points, the stored information is transmitted to a secure blockchain, creating an immutable delivery record and reliable transcript of data available to all supply chain participants that makes further investigation into the aid’s misuse or disappearance possible.
To assess the effectiveness of Track & Trust, Datarella has defined performance-related KPIs and collects customer feedback, which will be made accessible to users through a dashboard.
"With Track & Trust, last-mile aid delivery becomes transparent and accountable, making it possible to detect and eliminate corruption, unsafe routes and other obstacles standing between supplies and recipients," Johnson explains.
After a successful first test and approval by the European Space Agency in June, Track & Trust is now entering its trial phase. The first shipment, destined for two health clinics in Lebanon, contains solar panels to help alleviate the country’s severe electricity shortages. The hope is that these solar systems will enhance patient care by ensuring a consistent source of electricity. This means that the clinics won’t have to rely on gas-guzzling and expensive generators, which not only reduces their ecological impact but also—crucially—reduces costs, making healthcare more accessible for refugee communities.
The success of the trial has encouraged Datarella to set its sights wider. “After the successful completion of our pilot shipment to Lebanon, we plan to offer our technology to other logistics and humanitarian aid organisations.” This collaborative approach "reflects our commitment to leveraging technology for social good,” says Rebecca Johnson. “By integrating Track & Trust, we are setting a precedent for a higher level of accountability in the sector that we hope others will follow."
When asked what advice they would give to others looking to implement similar technologies, Datarella made it clear that while they have the potential to significantly enhance efficiency, transparency and impact, “implementing new technologies in aid delivery processes requires careful planning, stakeholder engagement and continuous evaluation.” However, the success of Track & Trust has shown that new solutions for last mile aid delivery have the potential to help aid go the distance.
" ["post_title"]=> string(72) "New Tracking Technology Hopes to Restore Trust in Last Mile Aid Delivery" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(179) "Violence, corruption and infrastructure inefficiencies mean that humanitarian aid delivery is often hindered. Track & Trust hopes to help it along the last mile to those in need. " ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["ping_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(73) "new-tracking-technology-hopes-to-restores-trust-in-last-mile-aid-delivery" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2024-07-20 12:14:28" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2024-07-20 10:14:28" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(27) "https://reset.org/?p=113378" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [1]=> object(WP_Post)#6686 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(104805) ["post_author"]=> string(5) "21497" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2022-09-21 09:14:47" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2022-09-21 07:14:47" ["post_content"]=> string(12622) "In early 2021, NFTs blew up, adding, alongside COVID-19, another viral acronym to the global vocabulary. Like the coronavirus, we knew a great deal about the new phenomenon before we knew how it worked. Still, it was easy to work out that the primary operating principle of so-called non-fungible tokens, widely if incorrectly equated with digital art, seemed to be money. Every day there were new headlines of people paying more money than you’ll ever earn for something you’ll probably never understand. But such is the nature of the art market, and besides, we hadn’t yet learned the real cost of NFTs.
A reckoning came on the heels of the initial hype, with outlets like Wired declaring, ‘NFTs Are Hot. So Is Their Effect on the Earth’s Climate.’ The Verge tied NFTs to a ‘climate controversy’, while one group of academics creatively calculated that “the mining devices verifying NFT sales in one month in 2021 would be responsible for approximately 18 unnecessary future deaths from carbon emissions.” Suddenly, NFTs went from absurd to murderous. Also, people finally paid attention to the mining devices.
An NFT in and of itself does not kill people or bring ruin to ecosystems. In fact, for most of its life, an NFT sits idle like a property deed in a land registry, carbon neutral as a rock. And that’s all it is, really: a deed which proves the ownership and authenticity of a particular asset, whether a house, a painting, or the first tweet. NFTs are registered on the blockchain, an immutable public record that lends the token its non-fungibility. You own this, declares the blockchain, everyone look!
Of course, there’s no good reason to show off the papers to your house. But what about, say, the certificate of authenticity to your Mondrian? In 2021, the public bragging rights granted by NFTs converged with the cultucurious economics of art in general and the infinity of digital art in particular. Liberated from the shackles of time, space, and talent, anyone could produce a work of digital art, tokenise it, and let hype take it from there. Cryptoart flooded the market, producing a dizzying torrent of numbers. At one point, tens of millions of NFTs were sold every day which, at their peak, were worth more than $40 billion USD.
This frenzy left a monumental carbon footprint. That’s because every action in the lifecycle of an NFT uses energy. When an NFT is created, the world dies a little. So too every time an NFT is bid on, sold, or transferred. Since NFTs can be traded forever, there is technically no end to its carbon-emitting lifecycle. What’s really shocking is just how much energy these actions require. From creation to sale, the average cryptoart NFT has a footprint of around 340 kWh, 211 KgCO2 – more than the flight of a single passenger from Berlin to Tel Aviv. In one infamous example, a single artist’s NFTs collection produced as big a footprint in six months as a person would over 77 years of using electricity. That’s the equivalent of boiling a kettle 3.5 million times (here’s a fantastic breakdown of these tragic figures).
The problem lies in the way some blockchains verify an action like creating or transferring an NFT. On Ethereum, where about 80% of NFT trades take place, this is called proof-of-work (Bitcoin also uses this method). With proof-of-work, computers compete to solve complex cryptographic puzzles in a process known as “mining.” Once the puzzle is solved, the action is approved. It’s an ingeniously inefficient design. As one engineer explained, “If it’s stupendously compute-heavy and difficult to write to the blockchain, then it can’t be done frequently enough to pose a security threat.” Worse still, the puzzles become exponentially difficult to solve, requiring ever more computing power and creating a spiralling excess of energy consumption. A person used to be able to mine from their laptop. Now, this happens by networks of machines in warehouses the size of a Walmart.
The thing is, the cost of electricity to mine most NFTs is higher than the price you can sell them for. So why spend all this energy on securing something that’s essentially worthless? As the artist Everest Pipkin writes, “During unprecedented temperature increases, sea level rise, the total loss of permanent sea ice, widespread species extinction, countless severe weather events, and all the other hallmarks of total climate collapse, this kind of gleeful wastefulness is, and I am not being hyperbolic, a crime against humanity.”
The good news is there’s an alternative to the mining model. Called proof-of-stake, it relies on crypto owners to use their coins as collateral for the right to verify transactions on the blockchain, which earns them more coins. This risk and reward mechanism is intended to incentivise the good policing of blockchain activity as behaving nefariously would be expensive and ostracising. Most importantly, proof-of-stake uses around 99% less energy than proof-of-work. When the nature program WildEarth released a collection of animal NFTs to raise money for conservation, it used the proof-of-stake Polygon blockchain. Still, many are sceptical of giving NFTs a green label. Earlier this year, WWF was backlashed into ending its sale of “non-fungible animals” after less than 48 hours. The animal NFTs also used the Polygon blockchain, which critics noted runs partly on Ethereum. According to one digital currency economist, a single transaction on Polygon is 2,100 times higher than what WWF claimed.
With NFT transactions culpable for carbon-related deaths, social pressure has spurred the art market to ditch deliberately polluting proof-of-work blockchains for more eco-friendly consensus protocols like Cardano and Solana. Ethereum, too, is cleaning up its act. On September 15, the second-most popular blockchain after Bitcoin switched to proof-of-stake. That means the more than one million transactions that happen on Ethereum every day are now around 2000 times more energy efficient than before. This is a promising development not only for NFTs but also every existing as well as future application running on Ethereum. One such example is DIBIChain, which aims to help companies trace the environmental impact of their products and processes from beginning to end. Now, every piece of information recorded on the blockchain will be much cleaner than before. From water management to energy distribution, organisations can finally use blockchain technology to make processes genuinely sustainable without being accused of greenwashing.
The ecological damage caused by the first NFT wave can’t be reversed but ideally it only happens once. A great thing about new technologies is that they’re nimble. Once the energy problem became clear, blockchain developers moved quickly toward a solution. If only our policymakers could do the same when it comes to making the switch to renewables. After all, the energy transition can also help make less adaptable blockchains like Bitcoin more eco-friendly. With an energy budget nearly equal to the entire country of Argentina, Bitcoin mining would do well to run on wind and solar. Meanwhile, in the case of NFTs, issuers, marketplaces, and buyers will need to be diligent about the technology at the heart of their actions – especially now that there’s no excuse not to go green.
" ["post_title"]=> string(54) "NFTs: The Hype, the Climate Cost, and a Greener Future" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(160) "Almost as quickly as NFTs stormed the scene, so did criticism of their carbon footprint. Is a greener future possible for blockchain technology and digital art?" ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["ping_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(35) "nfts-hype-climate-cost-green-future" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2022-09-21 09:14:51" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2022-09-21 07:14:51" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(27) "https://reset.org/?p=104805" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [2]=> object(WP_Post)#6687 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(104555) ["post_author"]=> string(5) "21497" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2022-09-07 20:16:12" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2022-09-07 18:16:12" ["post_content"]=> string(19485) "How much energy does a product consume during its lifetime? And what impact does it have on the environment? Manufacturers like Shiftphone or Nager IT, who have set out to develop products with a minimal ecological and social footprint, can get a clear answer. The two companies precisely trace and analyse all materials and processes involved in the creation of a product from step one. For other companies, a so-called life cycle assessment, or LCA, can help shed light.
A life cycle assessment measures all environmental impacts during the production, use, and disposal of a product, as well as its associated upstream and downstream processes. Environmental impacts include, for example, the extraction of ores and crude oil, but also all emissions such as waste and CO2.
Monitoring the entire life cycle of a product offers the opportunity to identify previously unknown negative impacts on the environment. The knowledge gained also gives insights on how to develop new, environmentally-conscious and climate-friendly designs and processes and to communicate successful implementations transparently.
Currently, however, conducting an LCA remains a major challenge for most companies. One of the main reasons for this is the length and complexity of supply chains, which often span countries and even continents. While the raw materials of a product originate from countries A and B, the individual parts are prefabricated in countries B, C, and D, then assembled in country E and finalised in country F. Even disposing and recycling products can follow a similarly long journey.
Such complex supply chains not only consist of long routes, but behind each "node" there is also a lot of information – and thus a lot of data – that is not always easily accessible. As a result, many manufacturers have no overview of what happens along the way. Human rights violations and negative environmental impacts often remain in the dark. But the times when companies can avoid responsibility by pleading ignorance seem to be changing.
More and more countries are holding their companies to due diligence on sustainability issues and pushing to shed light on supply chains. In Germany, a new Supply Chain Due Diligence Act (LkSG) will come into effect in 2023, which is intended to hold companies accountable for complying with internationally recognised human rights and certain environmental standards in their supply chains.
It seems to be (finally) becoming more important for companies to know the complete life cycle of their products. This will not only help to determine ecological and social footprints but also contribute to a circular economy. After all, if every raw material and component of every product is known, reusing or recycling products becomes much easier. New technologies, like the DIBIChain research project, can help gather the necessary information.
"Recycling and more sustainable product development were the starting point for initiating our project," says Andreas Kötter, Senior Manager Technology & Innovation at Capgemini Engineering. "Since hardly any manufacturer knows which materials and processes are in their product, it has also been difficult for them to record how sustainable it is and which recycling steps are suitable. DiBiChain allows 100 percent of all data from the supply chain to be captured, sorted, processed, and used to create the most sustainable product possible."
The DIBIChain project, which is funded by the BMBF and implemented under the leadership of Capgemini Engineering together with the Blockchain Research Lab, Airbus, Chainstep, and iPoint, is developing a blockchain application in which all the data of a product life cycle flows together. The so-called DIBIChain will then help to make product development processes fair, secure, and economical.
"Each participant from the supply chain enters their data relevant for the lifecycle assessment in encrypted form on the DiBiChain. This enables tracking from the extraction of the raw materials to their return to the material cycles," explains Kötter. "In general, the use of blockchain can bring more transparency to the entire life cycle of a product, which not only enables the collection of all sustainability-relevant information but also points out problematic content." In this way, manufacturers can ensure that social and environmental standards are met throughout the entire product lifecycle as well as identify the use of rare earths or other raw materials of concern. And since the manufacturers of components can be contacted directly to request information about the materials or dismantling, there is also the opportunity to increase recycling rates or close product loops in the sense of a circular economy.
The DIBIChain software, which is currently under development, is intended to serve as an independent, unchangeable, and trustworthy communication solution for the entire supply chain in order to receive reliable information about product integrity. And that down to the kilo. "Based on the end product, it can be evaluated how much information has already been recorded. So if an end product weighs 1,000 kilograms, you can use the blockchain to determine how many kilos of material are still missing for a holistic life cycle assessment," says Kötter.
A modular architecture has been designed to ensure transparency across the supply chain while addressing data privacy and protecting the intellectual property of participating companies. "Blockchain technology can be configured in different forms. In the DiBiChain project, we have chosen a variant in which data can be stored in a decentralised manner, including sovereign rights. This means that each user (i.e. manufacturer and supplier) can control all the information disclosed," says Kötter.
With the help of the architecture, the stored information can be enriched with additional information, which can then be queried and shared with other participants in the supply chain. However, this only happens on request and after approval by the sharing party as the data streams are encrypted and the participants in the supply chain are not automatically revealed.
Anyone who has been involved with distributed ledger technologies in recent years will probably wonder about the blockchain's energy consumption. After all, its most prominent representative, Bitcoin, has made headlines primarily because of its enormously high hunger for power. As Kötter reports, the blockchain used in DiBiChain is based on Ethereum, "a very energy-efficient technology that requires only a small amount of storage space while ensuring a limited number of duplications of the data. Thus, the energy consumption is very low."
In the case of the Bitcoin blockchain, the high energy consumption mainly arises from mining, but in the specific application of the DIBIChain, this does not play a major role. Therefore, when it comes to supply chain tracking, a blockchain-based approach is expected to be more sustainable than the paper-based, labour-intensive processes that currently exist.
DIBIChain is basically aimed at all manufacturers – provided, of course, that they want to make their supply chain more sustainable while preserving the data sovereignty of their suppliers. "At the same time, DiBiChain is also able to map and validate the contents of the Supply Chain Act. Due to its flexible architecture, it can be extended indefinitely," says Kötter.
Before DiBiChain can be deployed in enterprises, more work needs to be done in the area of user interface and customisation to company-specific processes. User interface has been a big issue since the early days of blockchain and is absolutely critical for such applications to be adopted by large, traditional enterprises that tend to be risk averse. For companies looking to make a difference to truly embrace applications like DiBiChain, they must be easy to implement and use.
There is definitely interest on the corporate side, according to the research team. But as long as an LCA is not a requirement, few companies are likely to look for suitable technologies. Still, there are a number of other applications besides DIBIChain with a similar goal. The cloud platform Sustainabill, for example, also helps companies perform much-needed due diligence and provides transparency in supply chains; in the future, Textile Trust wants to make supply chains in the textile industry more transparent on an openly accessible platform; and MineSpider relies on the blockchain to ban conflict minerals from supply chains. In the coming years, we hope more rigorous environmental standards and stricter supply chain laws, which take greater account of ecological aspects, will become mandatory for all companies.
This article was originally published in German by Sarah-Indra Jungblut.
" ["post_title"]=> string(66) "DIBIChain: Putting a Product's Entire Life Cycle on the Blockchain" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(207) "A life cycle assessment reveals a product's ecological impact from before it is produced, through its use, and until its disposal. The DIBIChain is designed to make this process easier and more transparent. " ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["ping_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(41) "dibichain-product-supply-chain-blockchain" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2023-01-25 13:28:29" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2023-01-25 11:28:29" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(27) "https://reset.org/?p=104555" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [3]=> object(WP_Post)#6711 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(98097) ["post_author"]=> string(3) "390" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2022-04-11 05:00:00" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2022-04-11 05:00:00" ["post_content"]=> string(5223) "Digitisation comes at a cost. When more devices are performing more functions, they require more energy, which often results in more carbon being produced. For many people, the issue is largely based around hardware - computers, laptops and smartphones which support software. After all, it is these devices which need electricity, some of which is wasted in the form of heat.
However, software itself has an impact too. After all, software is basically a list of instructions the hardware needs to perform. Although hardware is what uses the energy, it is the software which triggers this consumption. The more complex the software, or the more inefficiently it has been programmed, the harder computer systems need to work to perform its functions. This results in more waste heat generated and more energy being used.
An increased realisation of the impact of software upon energy use has led to the burgeoning sustainable software movement. Perhaps most notably has been in the increase in criticism of crypto-currency and blockchain platforms which use extremely energy intensive algorithms to operate. The recent explosion in NFTs in particular has grabbed headlines, with even charitable organisations themselves coming under fire for their connection to NFTs.
The push for cleaner code has been supported by government organisations, such as the German Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt) which has now developed a new award criteria for its long running Blue Angel ecolabel. For over 40 years, the Blue Angel ecolabel has shown consumers which products - from cars to kettles and everything else - are truly friendly and sustainable. The Blue Angel label is the oldest ecolabel in the world, but only now is it also being applied to software.
The first Blue Angel for software has been awarded to Okular, a Universal Document Viewer developed by open source software developer KDE, making it the first computer programme to ever be officially certified as eco-friendly.
At first glance, Okular might not seem like such an ambitious project - after all, it merely presents PDFs, EPubs, images and other formats on screen. This is something done by countless other pieces of software. However, it is entirely for this reason that it was selected for the award, as it performs functions of other software, but with increase efficiency.
All of this has a knock on effect, the more efficient a piece of software is, the less energy it needs and the less carbon ultimately produced. More efficient pieces of software also put less strain on hardware systems such as GPUs and cooling systems, meaning they last longer and maintain their level of performance. All of this helps make the digital age more sustainable.
As well as being more efficient, Okular also adheres to other sustainable software principles stipulated by the Blue Angel award. These include amongst others: backwards compatibility, uninstallability, modularity, transparent privacy agreements, offline capabilities and freedom from advertisements.
It is hoped initiatives such as the Blue Angel for software will not only educate consumers to the role software plays in the carbon footprint of their digital lives, but also create a new metric by which software developers can compete. Perhaps soon we will see computer programmes, video games and streaming services which boast of their more sustainable approaches. Although this will likely open up new opportunities for greenwashing, it may also make our veracious consumption of digital technology a little better for the environment.
" ["post_title"]=> string(74) "Okular: Free Image Viewer Becomes the World's First Eco-Certified Software" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(147) "Energy use and digital technology isn't just all about hardware. Software can also have a huge impact on the energy requirements of our technology." ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["ping_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(72) "okular-free-image-viewer-becomes-the-worlds-first-eco-certified-software" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2022-06-21 12:06:48" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2022-06-21 12:06:48" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(26) "https://reset.org/?p=98097" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [4]=> object(WP_Post)#6712 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(96472) ["post_author"]=> string(3) "390" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2022-02-09 05:00:00" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2022-02-09 05:00:00" ["post_content"]=> string(9015) "No three letters have dominated headlines in recent months more than ‘NFT’. Standing for ‘non-fungible token’ (a name not much clearer than its acronym), NFTs are digital certificates of ownership for digital assets, such as images, videos or tweets. In their short time in the limelight, they have grabbed attention due to the huge amounts of money - often in the form of crypto-currency - which trades hands for their purchase and sale. But their unusual nature, especially their connection to easily replicable digital assets, has also created scepticism and a love-hate relationship online.
However, charities and NGOs are increasingly turning towards NFTs as a means of generating donations and potentially long-term income, but not without controversy.
Wildlife streaming service, WildEarth, is the latest organisation to create digital NFTs for living animals. Following in the footsteps of other organisations, such as NatureSeychelles, WildEarth has minted NFTs for several of its animal ‘stars’, such as Tlalamba - a four-year-old leopard in South Africa’s Djuma Game Reserve. Up to 5 million viewers a month tune in to watch Tlalamba and others live their everyday wild lives, and WildEarth co-founder Graham Wallington hopes NFTs will allow viewers to interact with their favourite animals in a new and supportive way. The sale of digital assets is also seen as less damaging and more reliable than traditional forms of conservation funding such as hunting and tourism.
After purchasing a unique Tlalamba NFT, owners gain access to exclusive images, news updates and even voting rights on the naming of her future cubs. Owners also have the ability to sell on the NFT to others, like a physical piece of art, and generate a profit from the sale. It is hoped, in particular, that the burgeoning trade in NFTs can be used to create ongoing revenue streams.
Currently, each NFT from WildEarth costs around 200 USD, with WildEarth taking 40 percent of the sale. This money is then passed onto the custodian of the animal in question to provide for their care and security. According to WildEarth, the sale of around 1,000 NFTs has already netted the NGO an additional 14,000 USD in funds.
If the NFTs are then sold on secondary markets, the NGO will also receive additional royalties, although it remains to be seen how much of a market for animal NFTs actually exists.
However, NFTs have also generated quite the debate online. Some of this revolves around the nature of NFTs themselves. An NFT is a certificate of ownership purely for a digital asset, and is not the same as gaining the licensing rights to a piece of art or music. This led some to suggest they are certificates of ownership for assets with no real physical worth. Comparisons to scams, ponzi schemes and even the 17th century Dutch ‘Tulip Mania’ follow. To their defenders, the concept of ownership is not dependent on physical value to generate worth, and is instead taking ownership into the digital age of the 21st century.
But, for conservationists and environmentalists, NFTs have a much more tangible and less debatable impact. Currently, most NFT platforms take advantage of cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum which have extreme energy footprints. This is largely due to how they ‘proof’ their cryptocurrencies - which is where it gets (even more) complicated. Traditional platforms such as Bitcoin and Ethereum 1.0 use ‘proof-of-work’ concepts to approve its transactions. This requires numerous computers to complete complex calculations to decrypt a secure transaction. All of this requires computer power, often in the form of powerful GPU cards, which all requires energy. With much of this energy coming from non-renewable sources, older cryptocurrency platforms are seen as major contributors to carbon emissions. In many cases, computers are networked into vast 'mining farm' operations which increases energy demands further. Ethereum alone may have a carbon footprint equal to Sweden.
As a result, using NFTs to fund conservatism or environmental causes can often face a backlash. In early February, WWF-UK faced a Twitter storm after it announced plans to mint NFTs. Twitter users quickly criticised the decision and even threatened to withdraw their donations from the charity. An almost identical reaction occurred less than three months before when WWF-Germany attempted a similar project.
WWF UK - and WildEarth - were careful to point out they were relying on the Polygon cryptocurrency which works on a different process to Bitcoin and Ethereum. Polygon uses a ‘proof-by-stake’ model, in which transactions are completed not by raw computing power, but via users pledging a part of their crypto-holdings in exchange for fixed rewards once the blockchain has been validated. To many people both systems are likely to boggle the mind, but the important takeaway is that ‘proof-of-stake’ uses much less energy than ‘proof-of-work’, making it a cleaner alternative. The WWF claimed a single transaction on Polygon is equivalent to pouring a simple glass of water.
That Polygon, and proof-of-stake, is a cleaner system is clear, however Polygon still relies on Bitcoin to turn its cryptocurrency into traditional currencies, such as euros, pounds or dollars. This means it still depends, partly, on the dirtier version of the crypto-world.
But there may be improvements on the horizon. Ethereum has also announced their intention to move to a ‘proof-of-stake’ model to reduce their energy footprint and increase their transaction speeds. This is likely to come into force in the following years. For the general public, however, talk of crypto-currency, NFTs and digital ownership still raises eyebrows and the long term success of the concept will likely depend on bringing new blood - and money - into the crypto-community.
" ["post_title"]=> string(69) "Wild Earth: Can Cleaner NFTs Provide Funding for Online Animal Stars?" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(115) "More and more NGOs are turning to NFTs as a form of longterm funding. However, controversy is often not far behind." ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["ping_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(67) "wild-earth-can-cleaner-nfts-provide-funding-for-online-animal-stars" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2022-02-08 11:25:55" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2022-02-08 11:25:55" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(26) "https://reset.org/?p=96472" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [5]=> object(WP_Post)#6713 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(92697) ["post_author"]=> string(3) "390" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2021-08-11 10:01:00" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2021-08-11 10:01:00" ["post_content"]=> string(8936) "An NGO in the Seychelles has developed a novel and innovative approach to gaining funding for its projects, namely through joining the increasingly lucrative, but also controversial, Non-Fungible Token market.
Nature Seychelles is a NGO specialising in the conservation of the island nation’s roughly 220 native and migratory bird species. The destruction of habitat across Africa, as well as the introduction of invasive alien species, has meant some bird species have plummeted in number. The Seychelles Magpie-robin is one of these birds, with current estimates placing the population at only around 460 birds across all the Seychelles islands. In reality, the Magpie-robin represents a success story, having recovered from around 21 individual birds in the 1990s. Nature Seychelle and its BirdLife International Partners now hope to further finance this success by turning the Magpie-robin into a collectible commodity.
After teaming up with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Porini Foundation, Nature Seychelles is offering the Magpie-robin as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT). This is essentially a digital token which proves ownership of a unique piece of non-physical property, in this case a ‘Digital Nature Collectible’. The token can then be traded and sold to others, but only one token can ever exist for one specific piece of digital real estate.
All of this is then kept tracked within the blockchain, an online digital ledger in which blocks of information are distributed across multiple computer systems - often in a public manner. The blockchain infrastructure developed by the Porini Foundation therefore confirms the ownership of each NFT ensuring it is only ever linked to its rightful owner.
Currently, Nature Seychelles has released an initial supply of 59 NFT tokens - with each one representing a digital twin of a living endangered bird in its Cousin Island Special Reserve. The Digital Nature Collectibles can be purchased for varying prices, ranging from as low as 10 USD to as high as 10,000 USD. Currently, most of the low cost tokens have already sold out. The total value of these initial sales will go directly to Nature Seychelles, while owners can potentially sell their collectible to other buyers further on. In these cases both Nature Seychelles and the owner will take a share, potentially creating a new long term revenue stream. An associated app has also been developed to allow for easier trade and sales.
Right now, only tokens for the Magpie-robin exist, but it is conceivable that in the near future many other species may be ‘digitised’ into NFT collectibles, which can be traded for others or sold for cash. In this way, nature conservations may be able to turn their animals into a modern day equivalent of baseball trading cards, or even pieces of art.
It is likely that some may be slightly perplexed by the notion of paying thousands of dollars for a digital commodity with no real physical worth. But that’s not to say there is not a market. In recent years, NFTs have grabbed headlines for their novel - and lucrative - approach to ownership. In March 2021, Christie’s auction house sold a NFT of digital artwork, Everydays: the First 5000 Days, for a record 69.3 million USD. Days later, Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter sold his first Tweet for 2.9 million USD. Elsewhere, images, audio and video - often related to online culture - have sold for high values.
It is worth noting, however, that NFTs do not show ownership of copyright, but simply ownership of a completely unique digital asset. The owned image or video can be replicated and distributed elsewhere, often extremely easily and at no cost. Indeed, ownership of the only unique asset related to an oft copied image or object may be what gives them their high value.
However, blockchain itself is not without its sustainability critics, especially the amount of processing power needed to maintain the digital ledger. The ‘proof-of-work’ protocols on which blockchain depends are extremely energy demanding, as is the maintenance of the system and so-called bitmining farms (shown below). Some blockchain platforms and NFT sellers are attempting to face these problems by introducing new more efficient protocols or by buying carbon credits to offset their emissions - although this is also not without criticism.
Porini has attempted to sidestep these concerns by creating a carbon-neutral method which reportedly has nearly zero energy consumption. Instead of hosting their blockchain across the globe - resulting in vast amount of energy being expended - nature conservation organisations have given their permission to host blocks themselves. This means there is a pre-existing chain of computers set up to maintain the digital collectibles, making it far more energy efficient than currencies such as bitcoin.
Even with environmental concerns, the high value of the NFT market could be seen as an opportunity for additional funding by some NGOs and charities, especially with a rapidly expanding market. The spread of blockchains and cryptocurrencies such as Ethereum, Flow, and Tezos has further fueled interest and speculation in NFTs, especially in 2021. In 2020, the value of the entire market was around 250 million USD, by the first quarter of 2021, sales had exceeded 2 billion USD.
" ["post_title"]=> string(114) "Seychelles NGO Turns Their Endangered Magpie-Robins Into Digital, Tradable - and Hopefully Valuable - Collectibles" ["post_excerpt"]=> string(272) "Adopting animals to aid conservation is nothing new. However, a nature conservancy in the Seychelles is taking the concept even further - and bringing it into the 21st century. They have used the power of the blockchain to create the world’s first ‘digital species’." ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["ping_status"]=> string(4) "open" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(109) "seychelles-ngo-turns-their-endangered-magpie-robins-into-digital-tradable-and-hopefully-valuable-collectibles" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2022-07-20 08:53:08" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2022-07-20 08:53:08" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(26) "https://reset.org/?p=92697" ["menu_order"]=> int(0) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [6]=> object(WP_Post)#6714 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(41008) ["post_author"]=> string(3) "409" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2021-02-25 08:56:13" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2021-02-25 08:56:13" ["post_content"]=> string(6150) "Consumers are rarely given information about where their clothes come from and how they were made. In Germany, a new platform aims to bring more transparency into textile supply chains.Whether it's trousers, a T-shirt or a scarf - when we get a new piece of clothing, it's difficult, if not impossible, to find out where it was made, under what kind of production conditions and with what environmental impact. There are numerous different textile certificates and seals designed to inform consumers about all of these things, but the majority of textile companies choose not to use them. And there is still a lack of consideration for the environment, and numerous examples of inhumane working conditions found in many textile industry supply chains.Now the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and a team of companies are collaborating on plans to make supply chains in the textile industry more transparent in the future via an openly accessible platform. Texile Trust will display important parameters such as production standards and certificates, thus contributing to greater transparency in the flow of materials, as well as simpler administrative processes and certifications in the long term.Consumers are rarely given information about where their clothes come from and how they were made. In Germany, a new platform aims to bring more transparency into textile supply chains.
" ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["ping_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(95) "blockchain-based-platform-textile-trust-wants-make-textile-industry-supply-chains-more-transpar" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2022-07-12 15:40:46" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2022-07-12 15:40:46" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(118) "http://reset.org/blog/blockchain-based-platform-textile-trust-wants-make-textile-industry-supply-chains-more-transpar/" ["menu_order"]=> int(272) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [7]=> object(WP_Post)#6715 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(40331) ["post_author"]=> string(3) "179" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2020-07-23 06:43:29" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2020-07-23 06:43:29" ["post_content"]=> string(8530) "The Berlin startup Threadcounts is tracking and tracing the journey of fairtrade textiles - from farm, to consumer, to recycling centre. All with the help of the blockchain and a product passport that shows just how sustainable your clothing really is.For many years, clothing had to be one thing above all else - cheap. But while the fast fashion industry is still producing mountains of cheaply-made clothes with a short life span made under dubious production conditions, which are difficult to recycle - the market is changing. Consumers are increasingly concerned that the things they wear are high-quality, durable and fairly produced.The Berlin startup Threadcounts wants to support this development and has set itself the goal of breaking down - and opening up - the supply chains within the textil industry. It's a challenging task because the industry is so complex. It is often not easy to find out exactly where the raw materials for the finished textiles come from. But tracking and tracing is becoming increasingly important, and many consumers want to know whether their clothing has been produced sustainably or whether by buying it they are contributing to environmental damage and perpetuating inhumane working conditions. Threadcounts is convinced that transparent supply chains, with information disclosed at every step from source to store and beyond, will soon be indispensable. And disclosing this kind of information could also give sustainable companies a competitive advantage.The idea of tracking textile supply chains comes from Ella Cullen, Chief Marketing Officer of Threadcounts. The New Zealander told RESET: "I actually grew up on a sheep farm, so I knew exactly where my wool pullover came from. At some point, I harkened back to my roots and thought: 'Why shouldn’t we all know where our textiles come from?'"
© The Berlin startup Threadcounts is tracking and tracing the journey of fairtrade textiles - from farm, to consumer, to recycling centre. All with the help of the blockchain and a product passport that shows just how sustainable your clothing really is.
" ["post_status"]=> string(7) "publish" ["comment_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["ping_status"]=> string(6) "closed" ["post_password"]=> string(0) "" ["post_name"]=> string(57) "threadcounts-sustainable-fashion-help-blockchain-07192020" ["to_ping"]=> string(0) "" ["pinged"]=> string(0) "" ["post_modified"]=> string(19) "2022-06-23 13:35:51" ["post_modified_gmt"]=> string(19) "2022-06-23 13:35:51" ["post_content_filtered"]=> string(0) "" ["post_parent"]=> int(0) ["guid"]=> string(80) "http://reset.org/blog/threadcounts-sustainable-fashion-help-blockchain-07192020/" ["menu_order"]=> int(634) ["post_type"]=> string(4) "post" ["post_mime_type"]=> string(0) "" ["comment_count"]=> string(1) "0" ["filter"]=> string(3) "raw" } [8]=> object(WP_Post)#6908 (24) { ["ID"]=> int(39840) ["post_author"]=> string(3) "380" ["post_date"]=> string(19) "2020-03-03 09:06:31" ["post_date_gmt"]=> string(19) "2020-03-03 09:06:31" ["post_content"]=> string(11808) "While the Amazon continues to burn, innovators are hard at work developing new and effective ways to monitor, protect and restore the world's forests. From self-learning algorithms, satellites and drone imagery to blockchain-based smart contracts - tech has a whole host of smart tools that can be leveraged for good.The devastating fires that ravaged the Amazon last year were met with international public outrage and the age-old issue of how best to go about "saving the rainforest" gained urgency like never before. July 2019 set a new record for the most deforestation ever in the Amazon in a single month. And while forest fires do happen naturally in the Amazon during the dry season, the most recent fires are thought to have been started by farmers and loggers using illegal slash-and-burn techniques to clear land growing crops and holding livestock.Slash-and-burn techniques used to clear huge swathes of rainforest result in serious, long-term damage. Not only do the fires release carbon dioxide, thus contributing to the greenhouse effect, but they also cause rainforest soils (already low in nutrients) to lose even more nutrients and biomass. This kind of clearing also makes soil more vulnerable to solar radiation, which speeds up mineralization and releases further nutrients and CO2. This reduction in carbon stocks ultimately leads to the remaining nutrients rapidly leaching out. After only a few years, yields decline and the slash-and-burn land can no longer be used for agriculture, meaning farmers have to create new land for crops and grazing with even more slash-and-burn clearing, which then also leaches out shortly afterwards and can no longer be used for agriculture... it's a vicious circle.
© Gainforest Gainforest lets you invest in the well-being of an area of forest, supporting local land owners and forest conservation efforts.
While the Amazon continues to burn, innovators are hard at work developing new and effective ways to monitor, protect and restore the world's forests. From self-learning algorithms, satellites and drone imagery to blockchain-based smart contracts - tech has a whole host of smart tools that can be leveraged for good.
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In aid delivery, the last mile is the most crucial. This final stage, the ‘last mile’, is the final stretch before the aid reaches the hands of those who need it. However, while it’s arguably the most important step, it’s usually the most challenging, too. Various and often complex obstacles such as logistical inefficiencies, violence and corruption regularly inhibit aid from reaching the final recipient. This, in turn, costs logistics companies time and money, and has a huge impact on the overall trust people have in aid as a whole.
Luckily, some big names are stepping in to address these persistent challenges. Track & Trust, unveiled by Web3 innovator Datarella in partnership with humanitarian aid organisation Aid Pioneers and financially backed by the European Space Agency, is the first tracking technology designed for last-mile aid delivery. The technology has been specifically designed for use in crisis regions with poor connectivity.
Traditional systems for supplying aid rely on continuous internet activity to track the initial stages of the aid’s journey. When this internet is no longer available or the connection becomes weak, as is so often the case in remote locations, conflict zones with destroyed infrastructure and remote regions lacking reliable internet access, the aid can’t be tracked.
The consequences of this are far-reaching. Of course, on the one hand, the fact that the process of delivering aid is complicated and expensive is a huge disincentive for logistics service providers. On the other, without reliable last-mile tracking, aid is vulnerable to being lost, stolen or misdirected, leaving communities without crucial supplies. These logistical and corruption challenges have also often undermined trust in humanitarian aid (AidPioneers, 2024), making donors and investors hesitant to fund projects, further weakening support systems for communities in dire need of support.
"This is where Track & Trust steps in," explains Rebecca Johnson, Datarella’s CTO. "The technology we developed with our partners enables effortless tracking of last-mile delivery, even in the most challenging environments."
Aid delivery trucks are fitted with Track & Trust mesh nodes; Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) devices with multiple radio systems that can receive and save relevant data such as arrival status, delays or damages inputted by the drivers.
When trucks equipped with these devices pass each other, useful information regarding shipment status and GNSS data is shared between them without needing an internet connection. Then, when they reach satellite upload link points, the stored information is transmitted to a secure blockchain, creating an immutable delivery record and reliable transcript of data available to all supply chain participants that makes further investigation into the aid’s misuse or disappearance possible.
To assess the effectiveness of Track & Trust, Datarella has defined performance-related KPIs and collects customer feedback, which will be made accessible to users through a dashboard.
"With Track & Trust, last-mile aid delivery becomes transparent and accountable, making it possible to detect and eliminate corruption, unsafe routes and other obstacles standing between supplies and recipients," Johnson explains.
After a successful first test and approval by the European Space Agency in June, Track & Trust is now entering its trial phase. The first shipment, destined for two health clinics in Lebanon, contains solar panels to help alleviate the country’s severe electricity shortages. The hope is that these solar systems will enhance patient care by ensuring a consistent source of electricity. This means that the clinics won’t have to rely on gas-guzzling and expensive generators, which not only reduces their ecological impact but also—crucially—reduces costs, making healthcare more accessible for refugee communities.
The success of the trial has encouraged Datarella to set its sights wider. “After the successful completion of our pilot shipment to Lebanon, we plan to offer our technology to other logistics and humanitarian aid organisations.” This collaborative approach "reflects our commitment to leveraging technology for social good,” says Rebecca Johnson. “By integrating Track & Trust, we are setting a precedent for a higher level of accountability in the sector that we hope others will follow."
When asked what advice they would give to others looking to implement similar technologies, Datarella made it clear that while they have the potential to significantly enhance efficiency, transparency and impact, “implementing new technologies in aid delivery processes requires careful planning, stakeholder engagement and continuous evaluation.” However, the success of Track & Trust has shown that new solutions for last mile aid delivery have the potential to help aid go the distance.
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Almost as quickly as NFTs stormed the scene, so did criticism of their carbon footprint. Is a greener future possible for blockchain technology and digital art?
A life cycle assessment reveals a product's ecological impact from before it is produced, through its use, and until its disposal. The DIBIChain is designed to make this process easier and more transparent.
Energy use and digital technology isn't just all about hardware. Software can also have a huge impact on the energy requirements of our technology.
More and more NGOs are turning to NFTs as a form of longterm funding. However, controversy is often not far behind.
Adopting animals to aid conservation is nothing new. However, a nature conservancy in the Seychelles is taking the concept even further - and bringing it into the 21st century. They have used the power of the blockchain to create the world’s first ‘digital species’.
Consumers are rarely given information about where their clothes come from and how they were made. In Germany, a new platform aims to bring more transparency into textile supply chains.
The Berlin startup Threadcounts is tracking and tracing the journey of fairtrade textiles - from farm, to consumer, to recycling centre. All with the help of the blockchain and a product passport that shows just how sustainable your clothing really is.
While the Amazon continues to burn, innovators are hard at work developing new and effective ways to monitor, protect and restore the world's forests. From self-learning algorithms, satellites and drone imagery to blockchain-based smart contracts - tech has a whole host of smart tools that can be leveraged for good.
