Dear Dr. Arnold,

I am not a specialist, but I believe that Blockchain technology will permit some countries to surpass some stages without having to expend money and pollute the environment.

I would cite the case of Zambia, which had in the past just a few banks, and in the last years, it jumped to electronic ones by Smartphone banks access.

I believe that blockchains will let some countries do things that they wouldn´t without this tech.

But it´s just my opinion.

All the best.

Prof. Hess

Referring to the last comment.

Dear Aurelio, you are correct that some countries would benefit more of block-chain technologies then others. This is rather natural state in the world - regardless of the context. However, even this super advanced block-chain does not come without support of natural resources behind. For instance, we are all aware of how much mining of crypto-currencies eats electricity for instance. On that scale that we have whole plants mining bitcoins in energy/energents loaded countries (e.g. Russia). How sustainable this is in a long run?

As for the original question, it goes without saying that world will benefit greatly from this novelty (that most of us is not even aware how it works). But, we should be maybe skeptics how this might translate on our future generation and their digital well being. Honestly, I am not sure how fast and in what fashion our modern society could digest block-chain technologies. Just, let's recall the newest scandal with compromised data - and huge majority was claiming that we excelled the technology and that it is bulletproof - which is obviously not.

Dušan made an important point. Blockchain technologies can perhaps make positive contributions to sustainability management (transparent supply chains, security management, other aspects?). Negative relations are also to be considered. That is why I have tried to formulate the question as openly as possible. An example, even if slightly off-topic. According to the Google Environmental Report, Google already consumed approximately 5.7 million MWh of electricity in 2015, which should be roughly equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of a large city like Munich.

https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-environment.appspot.com/pdf/google-2016-environmental-report.pdf

I guess that it is in the human impulsive nature to overestimate eventual positive outcomes and underestimate negative ones. We should go step by step and be careful - which is a discussion for the whole new thread I guess. :)

Please be informed about the different blockchain and distributed ledger technologies available, each with a very different energy footprint. First big difference is between permissioned and non-permissioned solutions. Permission less solutions are most know as of today by their use in crypto currency applications, these blockchains can be used without approval, aka open to all. This requires a heavy check on fraudulent transactions done by minders using proof of work, compute intensive software.

Where permissioned solutions are requiring a formal onboarding before participation with the blockchain. In the latter all parties and their roles are known. Based on this knowledge the consensus algorithm can be tuned to light weight very energy friendly. (eg Hyperledger Fabric)

This Sustainability topic addresses both consumers and the corporate world.

In the corporate setting there are sustainability solutions in test that support eRIN/Certificate of Origin as well as CO2 emission rights management. By using a permissioned blockchain the energy footprint of the blockchain will not ruin the sustainability ethics of a solution

What other use cases are on the radar?

I recently came across an interesting paper that connects Blockchain and sustainable development goals:

Chapter Blockchain for Good? Digital Ledger Technology and Sustainab...

I will edit a book on that topic with Springer. If anyone is interested in contributing a chapter, you will find more information here:

Deleted research item The research item mentioned here has been deleted

the fin tech sustainability linked with many practices in the field of kortisinate and blockchain