3 Projects Building Solutions to UN SDGs on the Cardano Blockchain
This guest post was written By Ben Beddow, Co-Founder and Content Writer at Built On Cardano, an unbiased and easy to navigate map of the projects and tools of the Cardano ecosystem that is designed to foster learning and discovery.
While DeFi, NFTs, and the fallout of CEXes dominate the world narrative on blockchain, there are individuals inside each blockchain’s ecosystem working to build solutions to some of the world’s most pressing global problems.
The Cardano community in particular has adopted a global, social-consciousness vision for the blockchain and this is evidenced throughout the community—from the sustainability and climate focused proposals approved by voters in Project Catalyst, to the stake pool alliances (like MDPs and the Armada Alliance) created by community members.
Also in the Cardano community, there are many projects that are focused on having a direct and immediate impact on the world and those who inhabit it. Amongst those, there are 3 who have previously stated that they’re striving to achieve at least one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
What and Why: Sustainable Development Goals
The UN’s SDGs are the result of the 2030 Agenda, adopted at the United Nations Summit on September 25th 2015, and they set out a “supremely ambitious and transformative vision” for a future of worldwide equality in all aspects of life, for all inhabitants of the planet.
There are 17 SDGs in total, with 169 targets focusing on 5 different areas of critical importance for the planet:
People
Planet
Prosperity
Peace
Partnership
All the SDGs and their targets are interlinked and “indivisible”, breaking down the worldwide issue of inequality into smaller chunks that people can target with their ideas.
3 Cardano Projects Targeting SDGs
1. Landano
UN SDG #1 No Poverty
Landano is a land registration solution allowing those who have never owned the title for their land, and have never been able to prove ownership of that property or leverage it as asset, to do just that. The Landano team helps local people gather the necessary documents and file them with the relevant agencies to register their property.
The title deed for a property and the records used to prove the owner’s right to it are all notarized as NFTs on the Cardano blockchain, and are usable as proof-of-fact and proof of ownership of the property.
Landano also has a dApp, which features tokenized versions of the local government's land registration maps. Another NFT is associated with this map, meaning that each plot can only ever have one owner.
2. Veritree
UN SDG #13 Climate Action
UN SDG #15 Life on Land
Veritree manages blockchain verified reforestation projects to improve the transparency of the climate actions reported by corporations, and to help fight greenwashing. The veritree project combines geolocation with blockchain verification to bring new standards for reforestation to companies of the world, providing transparent and verifiable reforestation.
Veritree is standardizing the way data is collected on reforestation projects, allowing their growth to be monitored in a way that is rarely done today. Local planting companies plant trees and then use veritree’s tools to register the location of the trees on the Cardano blockchain. This information can then be used by companies to prove that their reforestation efforts are not only real, but that they continue to thrive and have not been double counted.
At the Cardano Summit in 2021, the Cardano Foundation announced a partnership with Veritree and, in the weeks after the Summit, the Cardano community donated 1 million ada to plant 1 million trees around the world in Veritree’s very first reforestation project. You can follow the progress of the Cardano Forest here.
3. Empowa
UN SDG #11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
Empowa has built a platform that manages crowd funded, sustainable development projects in Africa that give inhabitants of the countries accelerated access to affordable housing through a lease-to-own model. Such a solution also creates wealth on the ground as the land owner can now put their assets to work for them. Empowa also employs, and sometimes trains, local companies to build these green homes.
Empowa raises the capital for these projects through the sale of Impact NFTs. Once the project is funded and built, these NFTs then accrue rent from the tenants of the associated projects, over an extended period of time.
The Empowa project was kickstarted by a grant from Cardano’s Project Catalyst and has since gone on to launch its first project in Mozambique where affordable homes have been rented to locals on lease-to-rent agreements.
These Projects Are not Alone!
The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals were designed to be all encompassing and highly ambitious, but they were broken down into small enough “targets” that allow companies like those featured above to have something to aim for in their quest for a better world. We can see from the success that these entities are beginning to achieve that change is possible!
As previously mentioned, the Cardano community has a strong altruistic streak, and these three projects are just the tip of the iceberg when looking at projects in the Cardano ecosystem who are looking to positively impact the world through the innovative use of blockchain technology.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
This guest post was written By Ben Beddow, Co-Founder and Content Writer at Built On Cardano, an unbiased and easy to navigate map of the projects and tools of the Cardano ecosystem that is designed to foster learning and discovery.
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