The title of this article might have raised a question in your mind, ‘what is sustainability?’. Well, in a quick manner, we can say that sustainability is bringing up and implementing solutions that take care of the needs of both present and future generations.
The world of technology is dynamic and there are new advancements made every day. The latest trend in the tech world is Blockchain and it is known to be environment friendly. The blockchain has certain interesting features to offer and in this article, we’ll see how can features of blockchain support sustainability efforts. Before this, let’s understand what sustainability in technology is.
Sustainability in Technology
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Sustainability in technology means creating technical solutions that cater to the needs of present as well as future generations. This ensures that fewer resources are being utilized over time and efficiency increases more and more.
This is also related to minimizing the impact of technical systems’ or IT systems’ impact on the environment. Overall, sustainable solutions and sustainable technologies are encouraged because they fulfill our needs without impacting our environment and our future much. Now let’s have a look at the features of Blockchain that help us in making sustainable efforts.
Reasons to How Can Features of Blockchain Support Sustainability Efforts
This section of the article throws light on some features of the blockchain that support it in becoming a sustainable technology.
Decentralized Infrastructure
The blockchain has a decentralized infrastructure, which means that it does not need a central authority for validating transactions. This helps in conserving a lot of energy. If a central authority is introduced in a system like blockchain where a huge number of transactions are being processed in a minute, then it’ll consume a lot of energy. Decentralization eliminates this need for energy requirement by utilizing the energy of the nodes distributed throughout the chain. The nodes require comparatively very low energy for functioning.
Transparent and Traceable Transactions
Transparency and traceability are key features of any sustainable environment. To ensure sustainability, it’s important to ensure that every expense, be it in energy, power, or finance, is recorded and traceable. No one knows the importance of records of expenses more than businesses. In blockchain, every transaction is recorded, and it can be traced at any point in time. This ensures that the technology provides complete transparency to the businesses and is also reliable.
Immutable Record Keeping
One of the key features of the blockchain is the immutable records it creates. The immutable nature of the records helps in sustainable growth in a lot of ways. Firstly, if the records are immutable then there will be more focus on the accuracy and preciseness during the process. This ensures that incorrect records are not entered in the database.
The immutable nature of the records also makes them reliable as businesses can look up to them at any point in time knowing that they are unchanged and precise.
Rewarding the Recycling Efforts
Blockchains promote sustainable efforts through a reward system. Recycling is a key factor in keeping the eco-system safe and efforts shall be made in every area towards recycling. The blockchain records are recyclable and can be used over and over once they are entered into the database. This saves the power, energy, and effort required to enter the records again and again.
Any efforts in the recycling field in blockchain are rewarded in crypto tokens and are highly appreciated.
Tracing Food Wastage
The traceability of the blockchain can be applied to tracing the wastage of food throughout the supply chain. The food can be tracked from its source to the destination and the leakages can be fixed by monitoring its movement throughout the supply chain, thus fixing the food wastage issue. Integration of temperature loggers and equipment monitoring helps in the reduction of the wastage of food, promoting sustainable growth in turn.
Women Empowerment
Sustainability is ensured when efforts are made to place all the people on the same ground. It is needed for the growth that financial records and financial management tools are accessible to all. Blockchain ensures that women get opportunities to access financial tools, thus empowering them and giving them an equal and well-deserved chance. The future has no place for any kind of gender discrimination when it comes to technical advancements and blockchain is one of the best technologies to realize this.
Immune to Scams and Frauds
Technologies that become a victim of scams usually are unreliable and lose their demand in the market. To ensure that technology promotes sustainability, it mustn’t fall into the traps of scams and fraud. This will make it more reliable over time.
The distributed ledger of the blockchain provides ownership to every node involved. This helps in the reduction of scams as every node has its security layer. This also ensures that the bank services are quick to access.
Management of the Supply Chain
Blockchain has numerous features that focus on increasing the efficiency of the supply chain. In any organization, the supply chain needs to be transparent and efficient. This promotes growth within the organization as transparency and traceability ensure that faults and errors are reported and fixed in time.
Efficient supply chain management ensures a sustainable growth environment in an organization and also in the branches connected to it.
Final Words
Modern advancements in the technology world as well as the United Nations, both promote sustainability and make efforts towards achieving it in businesses and daily activities. Blockchain systems are a great example of sustainable systems. Features of the blockchain such as transparency, supply chain management, immutable records, and rewarding the efforts made towards recycling ensure that sustainability is promoted and rewarded.
A lot of things about sustainable systems can be learned from the way blockchain technology functions and those learnings can be implemented to make the other systems sustainable too. If you want to read more such interesting articles, keep following our blog page.
