Blockchain and environmental civil society organizations
Jérôme Duberry · 2019
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. Blockchain is one of the most prominent technologies to support good governance and some of its key values. This global digital ledger stores any type of transaction between two entities and individuals in a certifiable and enduring way. Thanks to its structure, this technology ensures trust among all agents of the network and allows any type of digitalized information to be recorded safely. Local communities with rights to natural resources can receive direct payments in bitcoins as a reward and incentive to protect their nearby ecosystems and species. This technology, by allowing environmental civil society organizations (CSOs) to develop more transparent, efficient, and safe financing mechanisms, to improve financing mechanisms, and to nudge more effectively individuals toward adopting more sustainable and environmentally friendly behaviors, positions these organizations at the center of technological change, which has the potential to radically transform global environmental governance’s actors and mechanisms. The routine type of administrative functions that used to be necessary to coordinate and finance field projects will be gradually replaced by blockchain-based applications. It will allow for more funding and more human capacity to be dedicated to the protection of the environment. This change will probably favor civil society, since these actors are already recognized as field and knowledge authorities. 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. 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.