In this Minimum Viable Product, we use Hyperledger to perform a carbon accounting audit and carbon neutral certification for a hypothetical company.
Our hypothetical company makes and sells a product. To do so, it purchases energy from a local utility and raw materials from a supplier. To become carbon neutral, it purchases a Renewable Energy Certificates (REC's) to offset its energy emissions and carbon offsets to balance out its overall carbon footprint. So the data we have for the company are:
- Company attributes - name and location.
- Utility bills showing energy purchased.
- REC's showing renewable energy purchased.
- Raw materials purchased - Dollar value, quantity, weight, and source. The raw material also has a published carbon footprint which the company could use.
- Products produced - Dollar value, quantity, and weight
- Carbon offsets
The following parties are involved in the audit:
- The Company, which provides basic information and information about raw materials purchased.
- Its utility, which provides the energy bills.
- Provider of the REC's.
- Provider of carbon offsets.
- 2 entities certifying the company's carbon neutrality. They will each provide a formula for calculating the carbon neutrality of the company. Their formulas are slightlly different in how they analyze the data. They have coded their audit into smart contracts.
- Neutral administrator of the audit, which manages the infrastructure, obtains the data and smart contracts, and publishes the results.
The MVP would:
- Set up a channel in a Hyperledger permissioned ledger for the parties
- Obtain company information, sign, and store it in the channel
- Obtain utility data, sign, and store it
- Obtain REC from provider, sign, and store it
- Obtain carbon offsets info, sign, and store it
- Run smart contracts from both certifying entities.
- Publish results from both certifying entities.