Blockchain and environmental civil society organization
Jérôme Duberry · Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) · 2019
In terms of emerging technologies, blockchain is one of the most prominent, with numerous articles and videos online mentioning its benefits for people and organizations. This global digital ledger offers innovative solutions in terms of trust, fundraising, transparency, incentives, and distributed governance. Blockchain technology provides a new set of skills to CSOs. It has the potential to positively affect any type of decision-making process involving multiple parties globally. Good governance is key to managing natural resources sustainably. Values of trust, transparency, inclusive participation, and effective implementation are the building blocks of future global governance systems that will ensure a healthy and prosperous future for all. Furthermore, blockchain technology can increase the visibility of sustainable and unsustainable production practices globally. This would help consumers to make a choice when buying products and services. The network itself, thanks to its structure, ensures trust among all agents and allows information such as land property rights to be recorded safely. Local communities with rights to natural resources could receive direct payments in bitcoins as a reward and incentive to protect their nearby ecosystems and species. However, this technology also raises numerous concerns, including data security and privacy, the right to be forgotten, high levels of computing capacity and therefore a high level of electricity consumption, and finally access to this technology, which remains unequally distributed in the world