A Carbon Negative Blockchain? It’s Here and it’s Celo.
Blockchain technology doesn’t have to mean environmentally unfriendly. To the contrary, with thoughtful design and policy choices, it’s possible to merge the effectiveness of immutable, decentralized systems with environmental responsibility. This is Celo.
With ongoing conversations around sustainability, the environmental impact of blockchain technology and popular, but energy-intensive, cryptocurrencies, we’re pleased to share that Celo is a carbon negative blockchain. Very simply, the Celo network’s Proof-of-Stake (POS) consensus algorithm naturally requires a tiny fraction of the energy usage of Proof-of-Work (POW) algorithms as used by Bitcoin and Ethereum. And at capacity, the Celo network could process up to 7 million transactions per ton of CO2 emitted by its infrastructure.
Celo’s commitment to being environmentally friendly goes beyond being POS. It began in 2020 with the intention of becoming the first carbon neutral platform by contributing daily offsets through the network protocol, making the operational resources powering the Celo platform carbon-negative from the get-go. To date, Celo has offset 2,285 tons of carbon through its work with Project Wren, and expects additional funds already set aside by the protocol to offset a further 4,696 tons. That’s the equivalent of walking instead of driving over 17 million miles. It’s equal to the CO2 absorbed by 320,000 pine trees for a year. It’s enough to make Celo 8 times carbon negative based on Wren’s estimates for the footprint of the network as a whole.
