Yale University uses Hyperledger blockchain to track carbon emissions

Yale University's OpenLab team will use blockchain, IoT sensors and other toolsprocessing data to measure and track carbon emissions.

Team from the Open Innovation LaboratoryYale University's OpenLab is exploring how modern technologies can help create global carbon accounting mechanisms. Their goal — creating tools to help comply with the Paris Agreement and the United Nations framework to reduce global average temperatures by 2°C to pre-industrial levels.

“In my opinion, the solution to climate change and reducing carbon emissions now lies in the accounting system,” — said OpenLab founder Martin Wainstein.

Recently, the Open Climate project began collaborating withHyperledger blockchain greenhouse initiative implemented by the Linux Foundation. Weinstein said Open Climate could use blockchain for its purposes similar to the Grid supply chain solution powered by Hyperledger Sawtooth.

"I think it's advisable to havea specialized structure similar to the HL Grid for climate initiatives,” — Weinstein said. “We’ll probably be able to talk about some development results in the next couple of months.”

Job in Canada

Weinstein's group is working with the governmentThe Canadian province of British Columbia is working on a project to use Hyperledger digital identity domains to track and verify the performance of oil wells in the region. The carbon footprint of an oil well is measured and the province's digital identity system, which includes DLT in its architecture, issues permission in the form of verifiable credentials.

“We are very interested in the work of British Columbia inareas of verifiable credentials for oil well permitting,” — Weinstein said. “The design of the system allows for verifiable credentials to be used for permitting, and the same architecture to be used for the credentials of the Internet of Things (IoT) device that reports how that oil well is being used. So you go all the way through the subnational accounting process using your own verifiable credentials.”

Verifiable credentials — wayestablishing trusting relationships between subjects. Just like digital versions of physical credentials (passport or credit card), they can be presented and verified on a P2P basis. Secure digital identity uses cryptographic signatures derived from a public key infrastructure (PKI) but is decentralized.

Instead of centralized checks, the blockchain maybe used as a kind of “public key,” so publishers of verified credentials can make their public keys available to everyone through DLT. This is a “facilitated” way to use the blockchain, in comparison, for example, with writing transactions to a chain or storing transaction data in it.

“We do not view our work as “creatingblockchain" and do not face problems associated with the adoption of technology", — said BC Digital Director John Jordan. “Yes, we use blockchain, but at deeply technical levels - it does not relate to the end user or services that will be able to issue, verify and revoke credentials.”

Another Open Climate collaboration isembed digitally verified credentials into the Verses Labs 'spatial network' protocol. This project is engaged in the virtual construction of space using IoT sensors and artificial intelligence. This is a way to "carry out actions in the real world, but manage them in the digital world," Weinstein said.

Audit capabilities

Accurate carbon accounting using the new digital protocols also represents a “huge opportunity for the Big Four” audit firms.

“I spoke with representatives of the Big Four,”and explained to them that carbon accounting will be an important part of their business in the future,” — Weinstein said. “I think they're starting to understand that. We are focusing on the technical side of the project and then hope to implement it at a later stage when they can start working at the consortium level.”

When it comes to creating consortia, experienceprevious initiatives says that it is necessary to create such organizations in stages. Open Climate, for example, is currently at the first stage, which includes the collection of charitable capital and the association of non-profit organizations, especially universities and large organizations, to work together. According to Weinstein, it is important to create a basic group of organizations that do not necessarily have a personal interest.

"About the beginning of next year, if everythinggoes well, we will create a financing model in the consortium, within which corporate assets can be contributed. But this will happen only after we develop a control mechanism,” — he said.

The next closest step — This is Open ClimateCollabathon, which will take place in April. Last year's Collabathon was hosted by Yale Lab alone and brought together nearly 400 developers and climate researchers. This year's event participants are expected to communicate almost entirely remotely, due to restrictions imposed by the coronavirus pandemic.

“We believe that it is very important to establish a process for remote collaboration, and now we have no choice,” — Weinstein said.

This is not the first time that blockchain has been used fortracking carbon emissions. At the beginning of the year, Mercedes Benz and startup Circulor launched a pilot project to track cobalt and carbon emissions. Additionally, in December it was revealed that the International Chamber of Commerce was using blockchain to reduce carbon emissions in commercial aviation.

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