To achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, many countries have established regional carbon emission trading markets and tried to build a low-carbon economic system. At present, the implementation of carbon emission trading and low-carbon economic systems faces many challenges such as manipulation, corruption, opacity, lack of trust, and lack of data tracking means. The application of blockchain technology can perfectly solve the above problems. However, the data recorded on a blockchain are often multi-type and heterogeneous, and users at different levels such as regulators, enterprises, and consumers have different requirements for data types and granularity. This requires a quick and trustworthy method for monitoring the carbon footprint of enterprises and products. In this paper, the carbon footprint traceability of enterprises and products is taken as an application scenario, and the distributed traceability concept of "traceability off the chain and verification on the chain" is adopted. By reconstructing the pointer of the file structure of the distributed storage, an interactive traceability structure supporting type filtering is constructed, which enables fast retrieval and locating of carbon emission data in the mixed data on the chain. The experimental results show that using the interactive traceability structure that supports type filtering for traceability not only releases the computing power of full nodes but also greatly improves the traceability efficiency of the long-span transaction chain. The proposed carbon footprint traceability system can rapidly trace and track data on an enterprise's and a product's carbon footprint, as well as meet the needs of users at all levels for traceability. It also offers more advantages when handling large amounts of data requests.
Moritz Platt, Stephen Ojeka, Andreea-Elena Drăgnoiu, Oserere Ejemen Ibelegbu · 7 authors
Abstract Decentralized cryptocurrency networks, notably those with high energy demand, have faced significant criticism and subsequent regulatory scrutiny. Despite these concerns, policy interventions targeting cryptocurrency operations in the pursuit of sustainability have largely been ineffective. Some were abandoned for fear of jeopardizing innovation, whereas others failed due to the highly globalized nature of blockchain systems. In search of a more effective angle for energy policy measures, this study adopts a consumer-centric perspective, examining the sentiments of Nigerian cryptocurrency users ($n=158$) toward Bitcoin’s sustainability, a representative cryptocurrency known for its high electricity demand. Three main findings emerged: 1) Even among those self-identifying as highly knowledgeable, most considerably underestimated Bitcoin’s electricity consumption. 2) Participants with a more accurate understanding of Bitcoin’s energy demand were more inclined to support sustainability measures. 3) Most of this supportive cohort viewed private entities as the primary stakeholders for implementing such measures. Given these findings, we suggest that consumer education should be at the forefront of policy initiatives aimed at cryptocurrency sustainability.
Amin Shokri, Ali Shokri, Dean White, Richard Gelski · 7 authors
The capacity of the greenhouse gas recycling mechanism in nature has long reached its limit, resulting in a sharply increasing trend in the marginal cost of recycling one unit of human-produced carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions. Externalities associated with the marginal cost of greenhouse gas emissions affect health, climate, and the economy, which have urged global authorities and governments to request urgent actions to slow down the production of such pollutants. Nonetheless, without public awareness and a holistic mechanism to monetise the impact of pollutants, a universal strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is condemned to failure. This paper presents an overview of emerging technologies that can come together to offer an innovative solution for monetising, incentivising and realising the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Through a brief review of the literature, an innovative ecosystem is proposed for the first time, accounting for a unified platform for carbon verification, validation and monetisation, which can be adopted as a business model to validate and monetise the amount of incentivising businesses and people for carbon saving on a decentralised blockchain platform.
With the introduction of smart contacts, Ethereum has become one of the most popular blockchain networks. In the wake of its popularity, an increasing number of Ethereum-based software have been developed. However, the carbon emissions resulting from these software has been pointed out as a global issue. It is necessary to reduce the energy consumed by these software to reduce carbon emissions. Recently, most studies have focused on smart contracts and proposed energy-efficient methods for the development of carbon friendly Ethereum networks. However, in addition to smart contracts, the energy used by client software in Ethereum networks should also be reviewed. This is because the client software performs all functions occurring in the Ethereum network, including smart contracts. Therefore, energy bugs that waste energy in Ethereum client software should be investigated and solved. The first task to enable this is to build an energy bug benchmark of Ethereum client software. This study introduces ECench, an energy bug benchmark of Ethereum client software. ECench includes 507 energy buggy commits from 7 series of client software that are officially operated in the Ethereum network. We carefully collected and manually reviewed them for cleaner commits. A key strength of our benchmark is that it provides eight energy wastage categories, which can serve as a cornerstone for researchers to identify energy waste codes. ECench can provide a valuable starting point for studies on energy reduction and carbon reduction in Ethereum.
Anna Vacca, Michele Fredella, Andrea Di Sorbo, Corrado Aaron Visaggio · 5 authors
Blockchain technology is becoming increasingly popular, and smart contracts (i.e., programs that run on top of the blockchain) represent a crucial element of this technology. In particular, smart contracts running on Ethereum (i.e., one of the most popular blockchain platforms) are often developed with Solidity, and their deployment and execution consume gas (i.e., a fee compensating the computing resources required). Smart contract development frequently involves code reuse, but poor readable smart contracts could hinder their reuse. However, writing readable smart contracts is challenging, since practices for improving the readability could also be in contrast with optimization strategies for reducing gas consumption. This paper aims at better understanding (i) the readability aspects for which traditional software and smart contracts differ, and (ii) the specific smart contract readability features exhibiting significant relationships with gas consumption. We leverage a set of metrics that previous research has proven correlated with code readability. In particular, we first compare the values of these metrics obtained for both Solidity smart contracts and traditional software systems (written in Java). Then, we investigate the correlations occurring between these metrics and gas consumption and between each pair of metrics. The results of our study highlight that smart contracts usually exhibit lower readability than traditional software for what concerns the number of parentheses, inline comments, and blank lines used. In addition, we found some readability metrics (such as the average length of identifiers and the average number of keywords) that significantly correlate with gas consumption.
Energy management in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is becoming more prevalent as the usage of distributed Electric Vehicles (EV) grows. As a result, Demand Response (DR) management has been introduced to achieve efficient energy management in IoV. Through DR management, EV drivers are allowed to adjust their energy consumption and generation based on a variety of parameters, such as cost, driving patterns and driving routes. Nonetheless, research in IoV DR management is still in its early stages, and the implementation of DR schemes faces a number of significant hurdles. Blockchain is used to solve some of them (e.g., incentivization, privacy and security issues, lack of interoperability and high mobility). For instance, blockchain enables the introduction of safe, reliable and decentralized Peer-to-Peer (P2P) energy trading. The combination of blockchain and IoV is a new promising approach to further improve/overcome the aforementioned limitations. However, there is limited literature in Demand Response Management (DRM) schemes designed for IoV. Therefore, there is a need for a systematic literature review (SLR) to collect and critically analyze the existing relevant literature, in an attempt to highlight open issues. Thus, in this article, we conduct a SLR, investigating how blockchain technology assists the area of DRM in IoV. We contribute to the body of knowledge by offering a set of observations and research challenges on blockchain-based DRM in IoV. In doing so, we allow other researchers to focus their work on them, and further contribute to this area.
Abderahman Rejeb, Karim Rejeb, John G. Keogh, Suhaiza Zailani
Blockchain can help to fundamentally alter aspects of circular economy (CE) activities and overcome pressing sustainability issues. Nevertheless, limited studies have investigated the barriers to blockchain adoption in the CE. This study aims to close the knowledge gap by providing a comprehensive review of the barriers hampering the adoption and integration of blockchain technology in the CE. An integrated approach based on fuzzy Delphi and best-worst methods has been applied to analyze and rank the barriers. Sixteen barriers to blockchain adoption in the CE were identified from the academic literature and validated by a panel of experts. The findings from the fuzzy Delphi technique identified ten significant barriers for further analysis. Then, using the best-worst method, the optimal weights were determined based on the experts’ judgment to recognize the importance of each barrier. The findings from this method showed that a lack of knowledge and management support, reluctance to change and technological immaturity are the most significant barriers. In contrast, the least significant barriers are investment costs, security risks, and scalability issues. Theoretically, this study is the first to apply an integrated approach combining fuzzy Delphi and best-worst techniques to prioritze the barriers to blockchain adoption in the CE. It also provides valuable insights for managers and decision-makers that can be used to optimize blockchain implementations in the CE.
There is an urgent need to control global warming caused by humans to achieve a sustainable future. CO2 levels are rising steadily, and while countries worldwide are actively moving toward the sustainability goals proposed during the Paris Agreement in 2015, we are still a long way to go from achieving a sustainable mode of global operation. The increased popularity of cryptocurrencies since the introduction of Bitcoin in 2009 has been accompanied by an increasing trend in greenhouse gas emissions and high electrical energy consumption. Popular energy tracking studies (e.g., Digiconomist and the Cambridge Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index (CBECI)) have estimated energy consumption ranges from 29.96 TWh to 135.12 TWh and 26.41 TWh to 176.98 TWh, respectively for Bitcoin as of July 2021, which are equivalent to the energy consumption of countries such as Sweden and Thailand. The latest estimate by Digiconomist on carbon footprints shows a 64.18 MtCO2 emission by Bitcoin as of July 2021, close to the emissions by Greece and Oman. This review compiles estimates made by various studies from 2018 to 2021. We compare the energy consumption and carbon footprints of these cryptocurrencies with countries around the world and centralized transaction methods such as Visa. We identify the problems associated with cryptocurrencies and propose solutions that can help reduce their energy consumption and carbon footprints. Finally, we present case studies on cryptocurrency networks, namely, Ethereum 2.0 and Pi Network, with a discussion on how they can solve some of the challenges we have identified.
Vincent Carrières, Andrée-Anne Lemieux, Manuele Margni, Robert Pellerin · 5 authors
The efficiency of sustainability assessments of textile products is generally prevented because of a lack of available and reliable data across complex and globalized supply chains. The purpose of this study is to evaluate how blockchain traceability data can improve the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of textile products and to measure the actual value of exploiting this specific traceability data. To do so, a case study consisting of two LCAs modeling the production of wool top lots in China was conducted. A first LCA was conducted with generic data and the second with the added value of specific blockchain traceability data. Based on the second LCA, different wool top lot composition scenarios were then modeled to account for the environmental impact of different farming practices. Two main results were obtained: the environmental impact of wool top lots can vary up to +118% between two batches depending on their composition, and the specific data changes drastically from the impact calculated with generic data, with +36% calculated impact for the same wool composition of batches. Therefore, it was concluded that blockchain traceability data could be a strong asset for conducting LCA at the batch level by providing differentiated data on batch composition and origin and providing readily available specific data for a more representative assessment.
Marco Schletz, Angel Hsu, Brendan R. Mapes, Martin Wainstein
The Paris Agreement’s decentralized and bottom-up approach to climate action poses an enormous accounting challenge by substantially increasing the number of heterogeneous national, sub-national, and non-state actors. Current legacy climate accounting systems and mechanisms are insufficient to avoid information asymmetry and double-counting due to actor heterogeneity and fragmentation. This paper presents a nested climate accounting architecture that integrates several innovative digital technologies, such as Distributed Ledger Technology, Internet of Things, Machine Learning, and concepts such as nested accounting and decentralized identifiers to improve interoperability across accounting systems. Such an architecture can enhance capacity building and technology transfer to the Global South by creating innovation groups, increasing scalability of accounting solutions that can lead to leapfrogging into innovative systems designs, and improving inclusiveness.
In the age of machine learning, cryptocurrency mining, and seemingly infinite data storage capacity enabled by cloud computing, the environmental costs of ubiquitous computing in modern life are obscured by the sheer complexity of infrastructures and supply chains involved in even the simplest of digital transactions. How does computation contribute to the warming of the planet? As information technology (IT) capacity demands continue to trend upward, what are some of the ecological obstacles that must be overcome to accommodate an ever-expanding, carbon-hungry Cloud? How do these material impacts play out in everyday life, behind the scenes, where servers, fiber optic cables, and technicians facilitate cloud services? This case study draws on firsthand ethnographic research in data centersâsprawling libraries of computer servers that facilitate everything from email to commerceâto identify some of the far-reaching and tangled environmental impacts of computation and data-storage infrastructures. It surveys a range of empirical accounts of server technicians to illustrate on-the-ground examples of material and ecological factors that permeate everyday life in the Cloud. These examples include air conditioning and thermal management, water cycling, and the disposal of e-waste. By attending to the culture of workplace practice and the behaviors and training of technicians in data centers, this case study reveals that the Cloud is not fully automated, nor is it hyperrational; emotion, instinct, and human judgment are enlisted to keep servers running. This case study closes with a speculative vignette that scales up from various local impacts to a planetary framework, sketching some of the particular ways that computation contributes to climate change and the Anthropocene.
Marthe Fogstad Dynge, Ugur Halden, Gro Klæboe, Ümit Cali
Support schemes like the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) have for many years been an important driver for the deployment of distributed energy resources, and the transition from consumerism to prosumerism. This democratization and decarbonization of the energy system has led to both challenges and opportunities for the system operators, paving the way for emerging concepts like local energy markets. The FiT approach has often been assumed as the lower economic bound for a prosumer's willingness to participate in such markets but is now being phased out in several countries. In this paper, a new pricing mechanism based on the Levelized Cost of Electricity is proposed, with the intention of securing profitability for the prosumers, as well as creating a transparent and fair price for all market participants. The mechanism is designed to function on a Distributed Ledger Technology-based platform and is further set up from a holistic perspective, defining the market framework as interactions in a Cyber-Physical-Social-System. Schemes based on both fixed and variable contracts with the wholesale supplier are analyzed and compared with both the conventional FiT and to its proposed replacement options. The results show a cost reduction for the consumers and a slight loss in revenue for the prosumers compared to the FiT scheme. Comparing it to the actual suggested replacements to the FiT, however, it is clear that the pricing mechanism proposed in this study provides a substantial increase of benefits for both prosumers and consumers.
In this paper, 20 enablers of blockchain adoption in Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) are identified and analyzed using DEMATEL methodology. Our analysis uncovers how the identified enablers interact with each other and impact blockchain adoption in SSCM. Results show the primary importance of management commitment and support for adopting and implementing blockchain technology in SSCM. The results also point out the need for the technology to evolve, so that clearer governance rules for blockchains are adopted, and the interoperability with other IT systems is enhanced. Insights from our study are provided to help more informed decisions at the level of the adopting firms, the industry as a whole, as well as at the level of governments and regulations authorities.
Muhammad Shoaib Farooq, Mishaal Ahmed, Muhammad Emran
Requirements are the basis of software development practices. Ambiguities in requirements lead a project to a point of failure or penalize it with a high budget and time for defect traceability. The ever-growing demand for advanced computing systems has increased the complexity of Software Requirements Engineering (SRE) practices. Blockchain systems require specialized SRE practices as the issues of Requirement Traceability (RT), developer/client confidentiality, and Requirement Negotiation (RN) typically exist in conventional approaches, which require more improvement. Moreover, blockchain technology incorporates the capacity to function as an infrastructure for the SRE framework providing transparency, security, and reliability. Even though the significance of studying blockchain in the context of SRE is evident, it is still in its infancy. None of the previous studies surveyed this domain to the best of our knowledge. We aim to summarize the scholarly contributions of blockchain acquainted SRE from 2015 to 2021 and to provide academia and practitioners with in-depth knowledge about this domain. In this article, we have provided a novel comprehensive review of the aspects of blockchain-acquainted SRE practices. We have presented SRE-based quality improvement factors and outlined the need for blockchain technology in this domain. Furthermore, we have classified SRE practices based on blockchain engineering. In addition, we have proposed a generic SRE model built on blockchain infrastructure along with its workflows. Similarly, we have provided implementation guidelines for the future development guidance of SRE applications built on blockchain technology. Finally, we have presented the current research challenges and provided future directions based on blockchain acquainted SRE.
Xiaoyang Shi, Hang Xiao, Weifeng Liu, Xi Chen · 7 authors
The distributed consensus mechanism is the backbone of the rapidly developing blockchain network. Blockchain platforms consume vast amounts of electricity based on the current consensus mechanism of Proof-of-Work (PoW). Here, we point out a different consensus mechanism named Proof-of-Stake (PoS) that can eliminate the extensive energy consumption of the current PoW-based blockchain. We comprehensively elucidate the current and projected energy consumption and carbon footprint of the PoW- and PoS-based Bitcoin and Ethereum blockchain platforms. The model of energy consumption of PoS-based Ethereum blockchain can lead the way toward the prediction of other PoS-based blockchain technologies in the future. With the widespread adoption of blockchain technology, if the current PoW mechanism continues to be employed, the carbon footprint of Bitcoin and Ethereum will push the global temperature above 1.5 °C in this century. However, a PoS-based blockchain can reduce the carbon footprint by 99% compared to the PoW mechanism. The small amount of carbon footprint from PoS-based blockchain could make blockchain an attractive technology in a carbon-constrained future. The study sheds light on the urgency of developing the PoS mechanism to solve the current sustainability problem of blockchain.
Dave Murray-Rust, Chris Elsden, Bettina Nissen, Ella Tallyn · 6 authors
This paper presents an annotated portfolio of projects that seek to understand and communicate the social and societal implications of blockchains, distributed ledgers and smart contracts. These complex technologies rely on human and technical factors to deliver cryptocurrencies, shared computation and trustless protocols but have a secondary benefit in providing a moment to re-think many aspects of society, and imagine alternative possibilities. The projects use design and HCI methods to relate blockchains to a range of topics, including global supply chains, delivery infrastructure, smart grids, volunteering and charitable giving, through engaging publics, exploring ideas and speculating on possible futures. Based on an extensive annotated portfolio we draw out learning for the design of blockchain systems, broadening participation and surfacing questions around imaginaries, social implications and engagement with new technology. This paints a comprehensive picture of how HCI and design can shape understandings of the future of complex technologies.
Robert Karaszewski, Paweł Modrzyński, Gözde Türkmen Müldür, Jacek Wójcik
Environmental protection is currently one of the key priority areas of the European Union (EU). The search for precise tools to assess the impact of the economy, industry, or the production of individual products or services is crucial for an effective and efficient policy in environmental protection. Blockchain technology, originally related to the financial sector and cryptocurrencies, is an innovative solution that is increasingly being implemented by other areas of the economy and industry sectors. The authors reviewed the literature and based on it presented the possibilities and effects of using blockchain technology in Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which is in line with the current development trends of this method. The analysis of the research conducted in this area also allowed to present not only the advantages of blockchain in LCA, but also the limitations of this technology and the potential directions of further research.
In the transition to a circular focus on electric and electronic products, manufacturers play a key role as the originators of both the products and the information about the products. While the waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) directive’s contemporary focus is on handling the product as waste after its end of life, the circular economy focuses on retaining the product’s value with a restorative system. The polluter-pays principle requires producers of pollution to bear the costs of handling the pollution, leading to the extended producer responsibility (EPR) principle. This requires manufacturers to change their focus from their current passive role of out-sourcing end-of-life treatment to taking explicit responsibility for product management over an extended period of time. This paper investigates how a manufacturer can assume its responsibility to achieve circularity for its products. Based on our findings, three fundamental circularity principles, the circular electric and electronic equipment (CEEE) principles, for manufactures of electronic and electrical equipment are defined: (1) Serialize product identifiers, (2) data controlled by their authoritative source at the edge, and (3) independent actors’ access to edge data via a distributer ledger are the foundation of the Edge and Distributed Ledger (Edge&DL) model. We demonstrate the model through a case study of how to achieve circularity for lighting equipment. The CEEE principles and the demonstrated model contribute to building new circularity systems for electronic and electric products that let manufacturers undertake their extended product responsibility.
Abstract Currently, inconsistent software versions lead to massive challenges for many car manufacturers. This is partly because within the product lifecycle management and the software engineering process, there is no correct handling of software versions for the “data entry” (installation of software on the ECU) of the vehicles. Furthermore, there are currently major challenges for many vehicle manufacturers to ensure transparency, integrity and full traceability of SW data status vis-à-vis the legislator. To counteract these challenges, new solutions in the field of vehicle engineering are to be developed based on a new platform called “CarEngChainNet” and Blockchain technology. On the basis of the “CarEngChainNet” platform, new main and sub-chain chains will be developed that allow tamper-proof SW data management (Peer to Peer and crypto technology) across the entire PLM chain with new methods such as model-based systems engineering of the requirement, function and integration of the SW components in different areas of vehicle development. The aim is to develop new transmission chains of vehicles with individually packaged software artefacts (e.g. ECU software) that can be securely transmitted from server to server into the vehicle.
There are a growing number of blockchain applications in energy systems, but surprisingly little is known about their direct energy demand outside of cryptocurrency applications. Addressing this knowledge gap should be a key policy priority so that the energy use of blockchain systems can be better understood and managed as applications proliferate. To help policy makers and energy analysts achieve this goal, this article makes three contributions. First, we present a brief review of blockchain system components, energy demand drivers, and emerging applications to provide a common conceptual foundation. Second, we propose best practices for energy analysis of blockchain systems and identify best practice lapses in previous literature that presently cloud our understanding of energy use. Finally, we propose priority research areas to address identified lapses and knowledge gaps, which would ensure future research produces data and estimates that are maximally relevant to energy policy decisions.
With the development of the Energy Internet and the support of the subsidy policies of various countries, Electric Vehicles(EVs) have ushered in a golden development period. However, the development of EVs needs to solve the problems of insufficient charging piles(CPs) and difficulty in finding CPs. In order to solve the problem of difficult charging of EVs, the concept of shared charging came into being, in which idle CPs or private CPs are shared to meet the charging needs of more people and improve the utilization rate of CPs. However, the shared charging scheme implemented by third-party platforms faces the issue of trust lacking. This paper proposes a blockchain architecture for shared charging, which can use the blockchain to build a trust environment involving private pile owners, charging pile(CP) operators, Electric Vehicle(EV) users, etc.. The blockchain architecture also contains the block structure where pointer was added for quick search, contract content that can automatically execute multi-party contracts to achieve secure computing and reputation-based incentive mechanism to provide high-quality charging services in detail. This architecture establishes the multi-party trust environment for shared charging from three aspects: secure storage, secure computing, and secure incentives.
Tarek AlSkaif, Jose L. Crespo-Vazquez, Milos Sekuloski, Gijs van Leeuwen · 5 authors
This paper proposes two novel strategies for determining the bilateral trading preferences of households participating in a fully Peer-to-Peer (P2P) local energy market. The first strategy matches between surplus power supply and demand of participants, while the second is based on the distance between them in the network. The impact of bilateral trading preferences on the price and amount of energy traded is assessed for the two strategies. A decentralized fully P2P energy trading market is developed to generate the results in a day-ahead setting. After that, a permissioned blockchain-smart contract platform is used for the implementation of the decentralized P2P trading market on a digital platform. Actual data from a residential neighborhood in the Netherlands, with different varieties of distributed energy resources, is used for the simulations. Results show that in the two strategies, the energy procurement cost and grid interaction of all participants in P2P trading are reduced compared to a baseline scenario. The total amount of P2P energy traded is found to be higher when the trading preferences are based on distance, which could also be considered as a proxy for energy efficiency in the network by encouraging P2P trading among nearby households. However, the P2P trading prices in this strategy are found to be lower. Further, a comparison is made between two scenarios: with and without electric heating in households. Although the electrification of heating reduces the total amount of P2P energy trading, its impact on the trading prices is found to be limited.
In recent years, blockchain has grown in popularity due to its singular attributes, enabling the development of new innovative decentralized applications. But when companies consider leveraging blockchain for their applications, the plethora of possible choices and the difficulty of integrating blockchain into architectures can hinder its adoption. Our research project aims to ease the adoption of blockchain into companies, notably with the construction of an automated decision process to solve this issue in which requirements are first-class citizens, a knowledge base containing architectural patterns and blockchains refined over time, and an architecture generator able to process outputs into architectural stubs. This paper will also present our current progression on this decision process, by introducing the preliminary version that is able to choose the most suitable blockchain between multiple choices and our process-driven benchmarking tool.