Chris Georgen, founder of the social impact-focused blockchain company Topl, believes that many consumers are unaware of the consequence
Chris Georgen, founder of the social impact-focused blockchain company Topl, believes that many consumers are unaware of the consequences of their buying habits.
“Forced labor, deforestation, the destruction of endangered habitats… As responsible citizens of the world, we wouldn’t knowingly support, condone or participate in anything like this,” he tells Magazine.
“Unfortunately, too often, what we buy can lead to this (and sometimes worse). Whether we know it or not, the things we buy profoundly impact the lives of others and the health of our planet.”
Blockchain may not be able to solve these problems directly, but it can play a significant role in supply chain transparency and rewarding ethical behavior.
Mesbah Sabur, founder of Circularise — a blockchain company tackling traceability solutions for a more circular economy — stresses the importance of consumers making greener choices:
“As consumers, we should be more informed about where the products we buy come from, what they are made of, and how they impact people and the planet. Consequently, making choices towards more ethical options and signaling the market a need for change.”
“The rise in global challenges signifies our collective responsibility to reverse the rate of environmental degradation,” says Sabur.
Many believe that tracing the origin of products allows people to better understand the impact of their products and make more informed choices.
“We can trace the coffee beans in our morning latte across continents to see exactly what a local farmer was paid. We can even use blockchain technology to begin to unpack what are known as Scope 3 carbon emissions and better understand the climate impact of the goods we buy,” says Georgen.
The public is increasingly concerned with the values of businesses. How the company treats its customers, its employees and its raw materials make blockchain-based systems a natural fit for ethical consumerism.
There are two ways that consumers could adopt — or, more controversially, be compelled to adhere to — standards of ethical consumption. The first is through regulation and enforced rules around production, which Energy Web — a blockchain-based nonprofit accelerating the transition to clean energy — believes is coming in the near future. The second is by embedding technology within products that afford consumers more choices when it comes to their buying behavior.
More robust tracking of product supply chains and broadening access to carbon markets are ways blockchain technology can encourage future ethical consumption.
Infrastructure for ethical product standards
To better understand the enforcement of production standards, Magazine sat down with Ioannis Vlachos, commercial director of Energy Web — one of the key stakeholders working on the EU’s CIRPASS passport, which will see end-to-end traceability of products.
EnergyWeb aims to foster and promote the transition to interoperable public infrastructure. Regulation looks set to play a key role in facilitating this transition.
New EU commercial infrastructure will include the CIRPASS Digital Product Passport, which brings together 30 stakeholders, including blockchain technologists. Vlachos explains that Energy Web acts as an open-source middleware layer within the CIRPASS project.
“We believe as an organization that if you want to create impact, you should be open, you should be public. There is no room for making money strategies based on private blockchains. Or creating vendor lock-ins. We do believe that impact comes from open-source and public things.”
The purpose, according to Vlachos, “is to lay the foundation for cross-sectoral product passports based on common rules, principles, taxonomies and standards.”
Providing information about the sustainability of different products is currently voluntary, but it will soon be regulated by the European Commission. It will be mandated that every single battery imported into European Commission member states be traced from the cradle to the grave.
“Regulation creates public awareness. If everyone is talking about this new digital passport of the European Commission, consumers start becoming more aware of why they should care,” continues Vlachos.
Morpheus.Network has also been using blockchain…
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