Rural areas in developing countries have constantly been plagued by poor sanitation and energy shortages. A key issue has been the decentralized nature of waste generation and energy consumption, leading to farmers burning crop stocks, lumber, and other agricultural waste. As 1.9 billion people lack access to waste collection services [1], untreated solid and liquid refuse hamper the health of many and irreversibly damage the local ecosystem. Considering the scattered nature of agricultural waste generation and centralized treatment difficulties, this study examines the feasibility of adopting decentralized blockchain system in trading biomass energy and agricultural products across the waste-to-energy ecosystem. A case study is conducted based on the Yitong system in Changzhi City, Shanxi Province, China. This plant collects and transports agricultural wastes (crop straw and animal residue), and converts them to clean energy and agricultural by-products like briquettes, fertilizer, and animal feedstock. This paper presents how a digital coupon or cryptocurrency can be introduced to trade the wastes, energy and by-products among the farmers and entrepreneurs. It argues that this system could maximize the use of agriculture wastes by incentivizing farmers and enterprises to work together. This paper covers three key areas: 1) Literature review, methodology preparation, and field assessment for introducing digital incentive mechanism to enhance rural wastes management. 2) Design of a prototype of blockchain-based model: (a) how the waste-to-energy plant managers collect the segregated waste from individual farmers through trucks connected to blockchain-based smart meters; (b) how systems on each of the trucks register the quantity of waste received onto a universal ledger when collecting. This quantity received will be translated into a certain amount of energy and products like fertilizer that the waste-to-energy plant owes each farm; and (c) how the farmers will receive digital coupons corresponding to the quantity of energy and agricultural products that they should receive. 3) Evaluation of the feasibility of blockchain-based model (technical and economic): (a) data collection on the total quantity of waste produced and the processing capabilities and availability of Waste to Energy plants; (b) assessing readiness of digital infrastructure (cyber-security and communications); and (c) economic evaluation of the incentives and responsibilities associated with the key stakeholders from the farmers to enterprises.
Blockchain technology is playing an increasingly important role in the Management Information System especially in the data security aspect. In this paper, we propose a blockchain based system for the data distribution and traceability analysis in Electric Management Information System (EMIS). The blockchain and smart contract is studied to ensure the security of data share in the system. The experimental results indicate that the proposed demo system can efficiently support the data share and supply the undeniable traceability services in EMIS.
Jan 1, 2019·Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences
Julian Kolb, Luc Becker, Marcus Fischer, Axel Winkelmann
Disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, or the blockchain, have the potential to transform entire industries as previous publications have outlined. They especially offer new opportunities to improve existing processes in the dimensions of performance, cost, and quality. Despite a continuously growing number of contributions, research and practice lack an adequate understanding about how blockchain can be used to achieve these benefits. Against this backdrop, this paper presents the current state of blockchain research in the field of enterprise procurement and outlines several avenues for future research. Therefore, we define relevant processes and functions to build a research framework for structuring and categorizing the current body of literature. Our results suggest that previous work mostly focuses on blockchain application scenarios with a focus on communication and transaction, while widely neglecting numerous fields, such as data integrity and data access.
The relevance of circular economy, in these days where the environmental impact and toll of humans’ activities is undeniable, grows steadily. Circular economy, founded on three basic principles, advocates for all materials to be kept in use for as long as possible. This takes a concrete shape, for example, in the importance of recycling materials.<br/>However, recycling materials can be a trickier business than one might think. Nowadays materials are so complex and specialized, that recycling them properly requires precise knowledge of their composition and content. In a way, then, it can be argued that the exchange of this knowledge, from material manufacturers to recyclers, is a core enabler of circular economy. As information exchanges happen mostly digital, data becomes then the key asset in this depicted scenario.<br/>Data exchanges are as well not an easy feat. Looking only at a business to business market, several obstacles refrain companies from sharing data more liberally. For once, openly sharing data exposes companies to threats from competitors and losses in their negotiating power.<br/>Circularise, the start-up this project has been developed for, has come up with a technical solution for a data exchange system that relies on a distributed ledger. Thanks to their technological protocol, circularise can enable secure collaboration between material manufacturers and the rest of the supply chain, all the way to recyclers.<br/>Despite the technological feasibility of the protocol, Circularise is struggling with finding clients. Currently the start-up has developed a value proposition that caters mainly towards material manufacturers and, as a consequence, material manufacturers are the only paying customer segment for them. In order for the protocol to have an effective impact and benefit on circular economy activities, expanding the client range is necessary for Circularise. This can be accomplished by expanding the start-up’s business model portfolio, so to speak. This means running two different business models at the same time, one being the existing one, catering to material manufacturers, and another one ensuring that a new customer segment receives an offer worth paying for.<br/>This is the opportunity this project is built around. In the course of this graduation project a digital platform has being design and is explained in this report, together with a new business model for Circularise to cater to automotive OEMs with a tailored offer.
Tokenization is the process of converting real-world securities such as as gold, oil, renewable energy, and so on to a digital equivalent and engaging it in business. In this chapter, we will discuss how distributed ledger technology can help us to tokenize gold derived from mines and involve it early in the gold trading cycle.
This paper proposes a conceptual model of sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) in small and medium enterprises (SME) using blockchain technology (BT). With growing focus on sustainable business process, research on SSCM is gaining prominence. BT, being a disruptive technology, has potential to impact the SSCM. Using the extant literature, the antecedents of SSCM using BT have been identified. Multiple-criteria decision-making has been deployed to develop the conceptual model. Various managerial and theoretical implications along with scope for future research have been discussed.
Reports on how blockchain can impact industries. IN 2009, Toyota announced a recall of four million vehicles due to faulty gas pedals.1 The recall cost an estimated US$2 billion. The company had received pedals from many suppliers. It lacked mechanisms to track the suppliers that were responsible for the faulty pedals. There was, thus, no way to know which cars had the defective pedals. Similar problems are found in the food industry. Blockchain has the potential to provide solutions to problems such as mentioned above by addressing visibility and traceability challenges. Blockchain technology enables companies to record every event or transaction within a supply chain (SC) on a distributed ledger, which is shared among all participants, making it secure, immutable, and irrevocable. It makes it possible to deal with a crisis in a targeted way after such a crisis is discovered and provides distributed trust. Blockchain can facilitate handling and dealing with crisis situations such as product recalls due to faulty parts or security vulnerabilities. Blockchain’s public availability means that it is possible to trace back every product to the origin of the raw materials, and transactions can be linked to identify users of vulnerable parts and devices. Also, blockchain can reduce the costs of a supply chain.
Blockchain has been emerged as a promising technology for a traceability system in industry. It can also be applied to many functions of a Supply Chain Management (SCM) system, such as logistics, quality assurance, inventory management, and forecasting. One of the most important functions of the SCM is to improve the transparency, traceability and auditability of materials flow throughout the supply chain from suppliers, manufacturing facilities, warehouses/distribution centers, to customers. This research especially focuses on the impact of blockchain on supply chain traceability through the current industry applications, and its future direction.
We seek to guide operations management (OM) research on the implementation of supply chain traceability systems by identifying business requirements and the factors critical to successful implementation. We first motivate the need for implementing traceability systems in two very different industries—cobalt mining and pharmaceuticals—and present business requirements and critical success factors for implementation. Next, we describe how we carried out thematic analysis of practitioner and scholarly articles on implementing blockchain for supply chain traceability. Finally, we present our results pertaining to the needs of different stakeholders such as suppliers, consumers, and regulators. The business requirements for traceability systems are curbing illegal practices; improving sustainability performance; increasing operational efficiency; enhancing supply‐chain coordination; and sensing market trends. Critical success factors for implementation are companies’ capabilities; collaboration; technology maturity; supply chain practices; leadership; and governance of the traceability efforts. These findings provide a nascent measurement model for empirical work and a foundation for descriptive and normative research on blockchain applications for supply chain traceability.
Growing consumer awareness as well as manufacturers' internal quality\nrequirements lead to novel demands on supply chain traceability. Existing\ncentralized solutions suffer from isolated data storage and lacking trust when\nmultiple parties are involved. Decentralized blockchain-based approaches\nattempt to overcome these shortcomings by creating digital representations of\nphysical goods to facilitate tracking across multiple entities. However, they\ncurrently do not capture the transformation of goods in manufacturing\nprocesses. Therefore, the relation between ingredients and product is lost,\nlimiting the ability to trace a product's provenance. We propose a\nblockchain-based supply chain traceability system using smart contracts. In\nsuch contracts, manufacturers define the composition of products in the form of\nrecipes. Each ingredient of the recipe is a non-fungible token that corresponds\nto a batch of physical goods. When the recipe is applied, its ingredients are\nconsumed and a new token is produced. This mechanism preserves the traceability\nof product transformations. The system is implemented for the Ethereum Virtual\nMachine and is applicable to any blockchain configuration that supports it. Our\nevaluation reveals that the gas costs scale linearly with the number of\nproducts considered in the system. This leads to the conclusion that the\nsolution can handle complex use cases.\n
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Innovative Microfluidic and Catalytic Techniques Innovation
Blockchain technology is an inchoate technology whose current popularity is peaking. Some of the most pervasive blockchain technology use cases exist for supply chains. Sustainable, and especially green, supply chains can benefit from blockchain technology, but there are also caveats. The sustainability and environmental management research and academic literature is only starting to investigate this emergent field. This paper seeks to help advance the discussion and motivate additional practice and research related to green supply chains and blockchain technology. This viewpoint paper provides insight into some of the main dimensions of blockchain technology, an overview of the use cases and issues, and some general research areas for further investigation.
This is the first work to introduce the use of blockchain technology for the electronic traceability of wood from standing tree to final user. Infotracing integrates the information related to the product quality with those related to the traceability [physical and digital documents (Radio Frequency IDentification-RFID-architecture)] within an online information system whose steps (transactions) can be made safe to evidence of alteration through the blockchain. This is a decentralized and distributed ledger that keeps records of digital transactions in such a way that makes them accessible and visible to multiple participants in a network while keeping them secure without the need of a centralized certification organism. This work implements a blockchain architecture within the wood chain electronic traceability. The infotracing system is based on RFID sensors and open source technology. The entire forest wood supply chain was simulated from standing trees to the final product passing through tree cutting and sawmill process. Different kinds of Internet of Things (IoT) open source devices and tags were used, and a specific app aiming the forest operations was engineered to collect and store in a centralized database information (e.g., species, date, position, dendrometric and commercial information).
In the world of technology, change is the only constant. As soon as people start adapting to a new invention, another innovation starts paving its way into people's lives. Each change in technology brings in new and improved devices. Old devices are replaced and abandoned. Such Electronic and Electrical Equipments (EEEs) that are discarded by users are termed as e-waste. Management of e-waste includes proper collection, segregation and recycling of discarded devices in an environment friendly manner. The volume of EEEs that is produced throughout the world, has led governments in various countries to create strict policies, to ensure efficient disposal of the generated e-waste. The Indian government also upgraded its E-Waste Management (EWM) laws in 2016 and 2018. These laws are a step towards environment friendly disposal of e-waste but their compliance is still at a nascent stage. Even today, e-waste collection and recycling in India is largely dominated by the unorganized sector, which makes the enforcement of such laws very difficult. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for EWM using blockchain based smart contracts. Blockchain is the technology that enables us to write smart contracts. Smart contracts are self-executing computer codes that take specified actions when certain conditions are met in the real world. EWM using smart contracts will bring more coordination among producers, importers, retailers and recyclers of EEEs. It will enable the government to regulate e-waste collection and recycling. It will also reduce the imbalance between the organized and unorganized sectors which will lead to increased transparency throughout the process.
Xiaoli Wang, Liu Yun, Gui Bing-Xiu, Meijian Yang · 6 authors
In many countries of the world, government procurement is a powerful tool for reflecting national strategic intentions and promoting scientific and technological innovation. Based on the perspective of the institutional structure and the method of policy for bibliometrics, we analyzed Chinese policies of government procurement to promote scientific and technological innovation, revealed the policymaking characteristics, and concluded that the Ministry of Finance should appropriately decentralize the policymaking work to other relevant departments of the State Council. This paper compares the main policy tools from five dimensions among China and other typical countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, and so on. Five aspects, which include establishing the database for vendors of micro, small, and medium enterprises; developing the grade system and the post evaluation system; formulating detailed implementation methods of innovative products and services; carrying out classification management for imported products; and setting mandatory insurances. In general, for the policies of government procurement to promote scientific and technological innovation, this paper provides an effective reference for organizing the agencies and formulating the detail measures. The research framework of this paper could be applied to analyze other policies.
In many countries, sustainable public procurement is a powerful tool to reflect on national strategic intentions and promote scientific and technological innovation. Based on the perspective of an institutional structure, we filtered out the core policies. Using policy bibliometrics, we analyzed Chinese public procurement policies on promoting scientific and technological innovation, revealed policy-making characteristics, and concluded that the Ministry of Finance should appropriately decentralize the policy-making work to other relevant agencies of the State Council. This article compares the main policy tools from four dimensions in China, the U.S., the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, France, and South Korea. We issued these pertinent strategies: establishing the vendor database for small and medium enterprises, developing a grade system and the post-evaluation system, formulating detailed implementation methods for high-tech products (services), and carrying out classification management for imported products. For sustainable public procurement policies on promoting scientific and technological innovation, this article provides an effective reference to organize the agencies and formulate the detail measures. This article’s research framework could be applied to analyze other industry policies.
OpenLitterMap rewards users with Littercoin for producing open data on litter. Open data on the geospatial characteristics of litter provide means of invoking and evaluating responses to plastic pollution. OpenLitterMap currently works as a web app on all devices with native mobile apps in development. The stack includes the integration of the Laravel PHP Framework on the backend; Vue for frontend reactivity; NativeScript-Vue for mobile apps; Bulma for CSS; Leaflet for web-mapping; Turf.js for geospatial analysis; the Ethereum Blockchain for tokenization; Stripe; ChartJS; AWS; and more. Anywhere from a single cigarette butt to the contents of an entire beach or street clean can be logged in a single geotagged photo. Alternatively, a simple index may be used if litter is incalculable. The open data includes an increasing 100+ pre-defined types of litter; 20+ corporate brands; verification status; coordinates; timestamp; phone model; the latest OpenStreetMap address at each location; and the litter presence as a Boolean. To date, 100% of all submitted data (~ 8200 photos, ~ 28,000 litter from over 150 contributors) has been manually verified which is being used to develop machine learning algorithms.
Motivated by the recent blockchain technology originally built for bitcoin transactions, various industries are exploring the opportunities to redefine their existing operational systems. In this study, an innovative environmentally sustainable solution is proposed for the fashion apparel manufacturing industry (FAMI), which is energized by blockchain. Incorporating the Emission Trading Scheme (ETS), and a novel “emission link” system, the proposed framework exposes carbon emission to the public and establishes a feature to reduce the emissions for all key steps of clothing making. Fully compatible with Industry 4.0, blockchain provides decentralization, transparency, automation, and immutability characteristics to the proposed framework. Specifically, the blockchain supported ETS framework, the carbon emissions of clothing manufacturing life cycle, and the emission link powered procedures are introduced in detail. A case study is provided to demonstrate the carbon emission evaluation procedure. Finally, a multi-criteria evaluation is performed to demonstrate the benefits and drawbacks of the proposed system.
The usage of cell (mobile) phones has increased over the years. As newer and more advanced cellular technology is introduced, the question of what will be done with disposed or retired cell phones becomes a pressing one. Currently, this problem has an impact on the environment, as e-waste in landfills is a growing concern. Many have offered solutions to this problem, some that involve recycling the materials the cell phone is made of or extending the length of the contract so that users keep their cell phones longer. However, in this paper, we provide an alternative to these methods by using our model to determine if a retired cell phone can be repurposed by identifying its functional components and its sensor capabilities. Given this information from our model, a repurpose-capable cell phone can then be used to develop useful smart campus applications and can potentially reduce the number of retired cell phones that become e-waste.
Adrián E. Coronado Mondragón, Christian E. Coronado Mondragon, Etienne S. Coronado
The decentralized transaction and data management technology that characterizes blockchain can have a significant impact on manufacturing supply chains. This paper aims to investigate the applicability of blockchain technology in the supply chain of composite materials/carbon fibre, in particular the manufacturing of structures and components relying on semi-finished materials such as prepregs (preimpregnated) which require temperature-controlled transportation and storage conditions. In composite materials distributed ledger/blockchain technology can be used for the purpose of tamper proof history of product manufacturing, provenance, transportation, handling and storage.