This proposal was originally created for the Green NFT Hackathon: Regen Sponsor Prize Bounty.
Author: Jennifer Tran, Linkedin
Though purchasing carbon credits offsets CO2 emissions, they do not prevent initial high emissions from NFT minting. Offering carbon credits for purchase might not lead to adoption while requiring carbon credits as part of NFT minting might deter the growth of NFTs. Creators, who already struggle to earn a living due to high gas fees, cannot afford an additional $10 to $15 surcharge per NFT minted [1,2,3]. Instead of focusing only on carbon credits, we need sustainable minting options from the start.
Creators and researchers disagree on early figures suggest that minting an NFT on Ethereum requires 35 kWh or 8,600 grams of CO2 due to the lack of verified and audited data on energy consumption and sources from minting [1]. Much of the data focuses on energy consumption (calculations based on the hashrate) from the process of how blockchain data is verified (ex. proof of stake vs. proof of work) while the sources from minting remain unclear [10].
Miners play an important role in reducing carbon emissions of the blockchain, and therefore, should receive incentives to make data transparent and for efforts for greener minting. Miners make critical decisions on the supply chain acquisition of infrastructure, property maintenance of facilities and surrounding land, and energy sources that fuel the mining.
Miners can join the Regen Network protocol to verify data on land restoration and supply chain, while the Regen Network protocol can provide REGEN tokens to contributing miners and supply the data to share with NFT marketplaces and specific blockchain community members.
Though there is no protocol related to energy courses on the Regen Network, in the future, Regen Network can integrate with tracking systems which are electronic databases that register basic information about each megawatt-hour (MWh) of renewable generation for enterprise businesses [4]. Basing off of the current data integrity validation method on Regen, credible tracking systems can upload renewable energy certificates to IPFS or another permanent URL and point it to a geographic identifier of the mining facility [5].
Many minting facilities are abandoned, formerly industrial properties (ex. factories) that were refurbished for minting [6]. Through the Regen Network Ecological State Protocols (ESPs), they can continue to verify and get rewarded for land restoration improvements. For example, a former plant converted into a minting facility can track the change in methane gas using the Methane Emissions Protocol and receive returns of $5 an hectare a year or more [7, 8].
The concept of a community mining facility can become a reality. NFT creators can participate in the land restoration of mining facilities of blockchains that they mint on and earn credits. NFT marketplaces and major businesses that mint NFTs can contribute financial resources in a DAO-like structure for land restoration as well as renewable energy sources integration.
In addition, registration of a project on Regen can be included in a proposal of new mining facilities. The Regen Network can partner with specific blockchains to offer new miners opportunities to register a project and participate in a full project lifecycle on Regen [7].
Miners can utilize a combination of the Supply Protocol and oracles of supply chain tracking data (ex. from XYO) to ensure a more sustainable supply chain of mining infrastructure [9].
NFT marketplaces can utilize the Regen Ledger and APIs, as well as buy data on the Regen marketplace, to show the CO2 emissions and restorative land practices of mining facilities to creators and fans.
The comprehensiveness of the data and emphasis on ecological change of land would better help NFT creators evaluate the ecological impact of minting NFTs on a specific blockchain, as opposed to calculating just energy consumption. By incentivizing miners to provide the data, NFT creators will no longer need to guess the long-term sustainability of a blockchain.
- https://memoakten.medium.com/the-unreasonable-ecological-cost-of-cryptoart-2221d3eb2053
- https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator
- https://www.climatecare.org/calculator/
- https://www.epa.gov/greenpower/renewable-energy-tracking-systems
- https://regen-network.gitlab.io/whitepaper/WhitePaper.pdf, Page 12
- https://youtu.be/-RdDmRlCbRE
- https://regen-registry.s3.amazonaws.com/Regen+Registry+Project+Developers+101.pdf
- https://regen-network.gitlab.io/whitepaper/WhitePaper.pdf, Page 18
- https://regen-network.gitlab.io/whitepaper/WhitePaper.pdf, Page 11
- https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-much-energy-does-bitcoin-actually-consume