Blockchain brings in transparency, eliminates greenwashing and secures an entire network of systems if implemented in the right way.
However, enabling highspeed blockchain transactions cost-effectively, while reducing carbon footprint has been challenging as blockchains consume high amounts of energy.
The technology was made famous for underpinning cryptocurrency. Mining this virtual asset results in emissions of between 25 to 50 million tons of CO2 annually, in the US alone.
This is on par with the annual emissions from diesel fuel used by the US railroads. Bitcoin alone is estimated to consume 127 terawatt-hours (TWh) a year, which is equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of many countries like Norway and the Netherlands.
However, despite these challenges, blockchain can be implemented to drive sustainability. Introducing blockchain in the oil and gas industry, for example, provides three major benefits: digitizing transactions with higher security, increased transparency and greater efficiency.
Overcoming blockchain sustainability challenges
Founded in 2018, a Swedish software organization working on fintech, blockchain and AI, wanted to improve its overall sustainability and reduce its carbon footprint, while running a modern application on a multi-cloud container platform.
Its focus was on enabling highspeed blockchain transaction rates per second cost-effectively and with increased security, while aiming to monetize its blockchain solutions through APIs.
The company partnered with HCLTech to organize its infrastructure to help deploy a secured container platform for blockchain and AI operations that met the high-performance needs of a multi-cloud strategy. The company was looking for a sustainable way to achieve their objectives.
HCLTech successfully delivered a solution using the IBM Mainframe architecture and also installed Hyperledger and the blockchain software on a cluster environment.
The entire solution gave the client easy accessibility, scalability and security. Using blockchain and AI as a service, it provided agility and resiliency with unprecedented speed and scale at extremely low latency.
As a result, the solution enabled 1,000 transactions per second compared to the market standard of one transaction every 10-20 seconds, while average energy consumption was reduced to 26 Watts per server.
Need for the right tech partner
While blockchain has the ability to bring in transparency, security and reduce carbon footprint supporting climate action, it needs to be properly implemented by the right technology partner.
The partner should strategize and provide the right sustainable infrastructure so that the organization using it achieves maximum benefits, without worrying about its impact on the environment.
HCLTech has consistently builds sustainability principles and actions into its own strategy, culture and day-to-day operations. In pursuing energy conservation toward its sustainability goals, HCLTech is committed to bringing down energy consumption and reducing its carbon footprint significantly.
