Bitgreen and Sequester Pioneer Climate-Positive Action for the Polkadot Ecosystem

Web3 stakeholders are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of the blockchain networks they use. Long gone are the days of blockchain adoption when the environmental costs of validating transactions and mining blocks were conveniently ignored. Blockchain teams are increasingly scrutinized and expected to include ESG criteria in their planning, design, and strategy. These factors often include an accounting of electricity consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, and e-waste produced.

As Bloomberg reported in 2021, Polkadot has the lowest carbon footprint among leading Layer 1 protocols. But having the lowest carbon footprint isn’t enough. To pioneer an environmentally friendly protocol, a network needs to aspire beyond carbon “neutrality" and actively regenerate the environment.

A Proposal for Climate Positive Action

Bitgreen is an application-specific parachain designed to establish an epicenter for decentralized digital sustainability and impact in the Polkadot and Kusama (Dotsama) ecosystem. Sequester is a proposed common good parachain that will coordinate a first-of-its-kind multichain initiative to establish climate action among Dotsama projects.

The two teams are introducing a Proposal for Climate-Positive Action to the entire Dotsama ecosystem to:

Volunteer anonymized transaction data to assess the parachain’s electricity consumption, greenhouse gas emission, and e-waste. At a minimum, this reporting will include Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions – ie. those produced as a direct consequence of the parachain’s core activities.
Enable parachains to open-source and publish this Scope 1 and Scope 2 accounting, and invite examination and recommendations by third parties for footprint minimization and mitigation.
Pledge an allocation of native tokens to purchase qualifying carbon credits that will verifiably offset the chain’s surveyed environmental impact.
Pledge an auxiliary climate-positive action allocation that is additional to any calculated offset. This allocation will be earmarked to enhance and extend the commitment by Dotsama teams to environmental regeneration and reinvigoration.

"Polkadot’s shared security design provides a unique opportunity to begin changing the rules on how we value carbon in our economic system, without requiring any changes to the user experience,” says Sequester Cofounder Brendan Edelson.

How Can Polkadot and Kusama Teams Participate?

As first steps, parachains will collaborate with the Bitgreen and Sequester teams to architect their desired participation in the Project and share their sources of Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions for computation. Bitgreen will provide a roadmap and a methodology for teams to follow.

In H2 2022, Sequester will release a suite of tools which automates the process of aggregating transaction fees, exchanging them into carbon-backed tokens, and retiring underlying carbon offsets that meet the community’s specifications. This will include a “donations” pallet and a Common Good chain. Parachains and their communities decide how much to offset, and setup should take less than one day of development time.

Parachains can deploy the donations pallet and configure it to move a portion of their network's transaction fees or other allocated resources into a merged treasury. The Sequester parachain will then exchange contributed treasury funds for verified carbon offsets from Bitgreen. Once purchased, the credits are immediately retired and a proof NFT is generated. Parachains can use the NFTs to prove their offsets.

Parachains can self-determine their own policies as set by their respective communities. Commitments will vary among projects and communities within the Polkadot and Kusama ecosystems.

Here’s a visualization of the process:

"This initiative showcases decentralized coordination and innovation at its best. We were two teams working on sustainability in the Dotsama ecosystem, and we came together to create an easy way for any Dotsama team to have a real positive impact on the planet. We believe positive climate action will be a new ethos that brings Web3 communities together,” says Adam Carver, Bitgreen CEO.

About Bitgreen

Bitgreen is a blockchain designed for sustainability that has targeted raising $1 Trillion for impact initiatives within 10 years. Bitgreen’s green DeFi platform provides a marketplace for exchanging high-quality carbon credits and impact investments. Web3 builders can utilize Bitgreen’s impact banking infrastructure and technical framework for originating and tokenizing natural capital assets and carbon credits.

About Sequester

Sequester seeks to establish a common good parachain on both Polkadot and Kusama. This parachain will allow any parachain team to utilize the donations pallet and become climate-positive in less than 1 day of development time. Sequester will propose a common good parachain first on Kusama and then on Polkadot. Sequester received a Web3 Foundation grant for the initial version of the donations pallet.

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