Bryan Daugherty talks about the environmental impact of blockchain and the digital currency on the Energy News Beat podcast

Bryan Daugherty, Public Policy Director for BSV Blockchain, was a guest on the Energy News Beat podcast hosted by Stuart Turley.

In the episode, Daughtery and Turley explore how blockchain provides a solution to the greenwashing problem in the ESG world, the value that blockchain technology creates when utility is present, the amount of energy-efficient work (PoW) blockchain protocols and traditional systems use, and more. Here are some highlights from the episode.

What is Blockchain?

Daugherty sets the stage by explaining the education gap that exists within the blockchain and digital asset areas because a majority of people get their education from the media, which tends to focus only on the speculative aspects of digital currency instead of the digital ones. the assets that can be used to build solutions that reduce costs and increase profits while increasing transparency, security and efficiency thanks to the blockchain.

Daugherty explains how blockchain provides the infrastructure that removes third parties, increases security and transparency along a value chain, and therefore blockchain is well suited for ESG-related matters.

He gives an example of a fisherman who catches a fish and moves along the supply chain until it reaches its final destination, a sushi restaurant. In today’s world, it is challenging, if not impossible, to authenticate the fish’s data in real time, but with blockchain – a public, transparent accounting book – all parties involved in a transaction can monitor the fish’s journey and specify each step out of the way.

You can put data on the chain because it is less than a thousandth of a penny per kilobyte. In many cases you will know where the ingredients come from, where they were sourced, the quality of these ingredients and the testing that was used to evaluate them. The blockchain acts as the universal source of truth, so at the end of the day you have this responsibility if something goes wrong, you have this general ledger, this universal source of truth that allows you to go back in time, and it is immutable, so you know that data does not changes, Daugherty explains.

“All this data is worth money to companies. So now you are not just building a better product, you are building a better more robust infrastructure, a faster more real-time infrastructure, so now you can really start facilitating truth,” he adds.

The blockchain’s ability to invariably log and timestamp data on a public ledger solves a significant problem in the ESG world – greenwashing. Greenwashing is when a company claims to be environmentally conscious for marketing purposes, but does not make any significant sustainability efforts. To date, this problem has been difficult to determine because it has been difficult to verify the authenticity of data. However, using a blockchain to record data can solve this problem.

“When it comes to the ESG problem that we have, that companies are wondering how to authenticate and verify data, they really only need to put the data they are already collecting in a ledger of events so that they can go back to it,” Daugherty informs.

The environmental impact of digital currency

Daugherty and Turley talk briefly about energy consumption in the context of proof-of-work protocols as well as older systems. Daugherty points out that energy efficiency depends on system performance. If the same amount of energy is required for both a BTC transaction and a BSV transaction and BTC outputs 1 MB value while BSV creates 8 GB value or more than the CO2 output for each protocol will be drastically different. He also points out that this is a factor that must be considered when discussing the energy consumption of work permit mining.

Daugherty points out that the amount of energy traditional databases use has an equal impact on the environment, but is often ignored.

“A YouTube video, if it has 5 million views, hits 8 data centers when you google it. How much energy does it use? We are talking about 72 Olympic water pools just to store and access one Youtube video, he says.

Finally, Daugherty and Turley talk about how having a universal source of truth and data ownership empowers consumers and end users as today’s Internet does not, how micropayments and microtransactions have enabled new business models, and what Daugherty sees happening in the government front.

You can learn more about how blockchain can be used in ESG verticals by watching ENB “# 59: What does Bitcoin have to do with ESG in countering” Greenwashing “in corporate America?

See also: BSV Global Blockchain Convention Panel, ESG Compliance & Blockchain

New to Bitcoin? Check out CoinGeeks Bitcoin for beginners section, the ultimate resource guide for learning more about Bitcoin – originally proposed by Satoshi Nakamoto – and blockchain.