Polygon has set aside $20 million in an effort to offset the carbon dioxide emissions from this year completely.
Polygon is a software platform primarily for the blockchain developers who utilize the Ethereum blockchain. The founder of Polygon, Sandeep Nailwal, said that much more efforts need to be made by the blockchain companies to form a ‘united front’ to fund and ‘leverage technology that will help heal the earth rather than destroy it.
The crypto, blockchain, and mining industry have been accused of massive electricity use. It is the need of the hour to derive some measures to minimize and mitigate the environmental effects of these projects.
Polygon is stepping in to take the initiative
Polygon said it would utilize KlimaDAO data to calculate and offset its carbon emissions and acquire $400,000 in carbon credits through the decentralized autonomous organization.
According to Nailwal, the business would also sponsor projects to build carbon credit trading on the blockchain. Over 99 percent of Polygon’s emissions come from “checkpointing,” or the process of integrating Polygon transactions into the Ethereum blockchain, and “bridging,” which includes transactions on the Ethereum Mainnet, according to the blockchain business.
Polygon’s network emissions totaled 85,015 tonnes of CO2 in the 12 months leading up to February 2022. According to the company, Polygon has also commissioned an evaluation of its carbon impact from the Crypto Carbon Ratings Institute.
“Through our sustainability commitment and community-driven efforts, we can successfully address societal shifts, avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and meet the sustainable development goals set out by the United Nations,” Nailwal said.
In the last ten years, the demand for cryptocurrencies has soared higher than other trading commodities.
Bitcoin is seen as harmful to the environment due to its energy-intensive proof-of-work mechanism, which necessitates massive quantities of electricity to operate millions of servers. Other cryptocurrencies, such as Cardano, Nano, and Chia, are not built around the same mining creation as Bitcoin.
In response to activist criticism, Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, has hinted at switching from a proof-of-work (PoW) system to a proof-of-stake (PoS) system, which picks one person at a time at random to solve the block, lowering energy usage by 99 percent.