Web3 has gradually gained momentum as a force for good. We have seen organisations such as UNDP, WEF, and UNITAR sing its praises as a potential accelerator in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. What is less clear is the level of progress. More specifically, is Web3 living up to expectations?
With less than six years to go, I figured it was a good time to answer that question by investigating the current state of the Web3 industry's contributions to the SDGs and understanding the challenges holding the industry back.
SDG #1 - No Poverty
End poverty in all its forms everywhere.
Driving financial inclusion
Web3 achieves this through Decentralised Finance (DeFi). In 2021, Celo launched the DeFi for People Initiative, a US$100 million project to make DeFi accessible to the 6 billion mobile phone users around the world.
Borderless UBI distribution
As of 2023, GoodDollar has distributed US$425,000 worth of GoodDollar UBI to users from Indonesia, Nigeria, India, Brazil, and beyond, while impactMarket has distributed US$3+ million in UBI funds to its users.
SDG #2 - Zero hunger
End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.
Empowering smallholder farmers
EthicHub connects farmers with financing from international lenders and an equitable supply chain market to sell their produce. At the time of writing, EthicHub has funded 500+ projects with about US$4.5M capital and a 100% return to investors. AgUnity digitises agricultural value chains to tackle the complexity, data unavailability, and traceability issues smallholder farmers face.
On-chain parametric insurance for farmers
Etherisc aims to make insurance more affordable and accessible for farmers. A key feature is parametric insurance, which is based on trigger events such as flooding rather than the magnitude of the loss. So far, Etherisc has parametrically insured 32,000 farmers in collaboration with the Lemonade Foundation and Acre Africa.
Transparency in food supply systems
Web3 tackles this issue by enabling the development of blockchain-based food supply chains. Companies like Walmart and Farmer Connect use the IBM Food Trust, a blockchain-based supply chain, to track their products from raw material to the finished form.
SDG #3: Good Health And Well-Being
Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
Incentivising physical fitness (move to earn)
Rather than motivating people with the promise of health benefits, Web3 fitness platforms focus on the present by rewarding active users with cryptocurrency for exercising. Sweatcoin, one such platform, has rewarded its users with about 51 billion sweat coins worth US$316 million.
Funding health-related research
Web3 deentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) have emerged to support diverse areas of health research. For example, VitaDAO, a DAO focused on funding human-life longevity research, has funded 22 research projects with US$4.5M. Similarly, AthenaDAO, a funding community focused on women's health, is conducting a grant application round offering US$50,000 to US$150,000 to support research in reproductive technologies.
SDG #4: Quality Education
Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
Adding an incentive layer
The internet has done wonders for access to education. Web3 has added an incentive layer to benefit both students and educational content creators. Students now have the opportunity to earn from completing courses (KFMedia℠ employs this model), while creators are being rewarded fairly for their content (TinyTap is a good example).
SDG #5: Gender Equality
Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.
Empowering women through Web3
Gender inequality remains a significant issue in the Web3 space, with women facing significant barriers to full participation. For instance, male founders and C-level executives outnumber their female counterparts by nearly 9:1 in Web3 startups. However, efforts are underway to address this gender gap. Educational initiatives like SheFi and H.E.R. DAO have trained 3000 and 800 women, respectively. Blockchain4Her, Women Rise NFT, and Women of Web3 provide mentorship, funding, and resources to empower women.
SDG #6: Clean Water And Sanitation
Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.
On-chain water credits
WaterLAB seeks to classify and certify new sources of water in a transparent information system according to their beneficial attributes in the form of the $RH20 water credit. Every RH2O water credit represents one cubic metre of water and certifies that a qualified water-generating facility generated it. Any RH2O credit holder can use it to offset water from the water utility.
Conserving water through DePIN
AquaSave, a DePIN project, is addressing the global water crisis through a framework that integrates a network of IoT devices and blockchain technologies, empowering users to engage in water conservation by rewarding them with AquaCoin tokens ($AQC). This framework encourages community participation in monitoring and analysing the situation of the planet's water resources.
Building water facilities in underserved communities
There are DAOs focused on building regenerative water infrastructure in rural communities to combat water scarcity. For example, Atlantis has been able to decentralise water access in Bangalore with a consistent 20-25% water demand regenerated and has also established water awareness camps for 1,500 locals in Chikmagalur.
SDG #7: Affordable And Clean Energy
Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.
Decentralised electricity infrastructure networks
Web3 is enabling the transition from centralised to decentralised energy infrastructure as a means to address the electricity access gap. M3tering is enabling a new generation of on-chain solar energy providers, while Powerledger supports the on-chain energy trading.
On-chain renewable energy certificates (RECs)
Web3 is making it easier to verify, issue, and sell on-chain RECs for voluntary climate action. Arkreen lets holders of green energy assets mint RECs that can be sold or retired. Reneum has already certified more than 30 million digital RECs from 100+ renewable energy projects in 17 countries.
SDG #8: Decent Work And Economic Growth
Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.
Empowering communities through regenerative initiatives
Web3 has allowed the creation of networks working to empower the growth of rural economies by engaging and incentivising them to participate in regenerative initiatives. For instance, Silvi is working towards helping 100 million people earn from planting 1 trillion trees. Kokonut Network seeks to create about 10,000+ jobs for locals. Grassroots Economics enables prospering economies built by thriving communities.
SDG #9: Industry, Innovation, And Infrastructure
Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.
Decentralised Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePINs)
DePINs are blockchain-based frameworks that decentralise physical infrastructure ownership, management, and financing. People can earn cryptocurrency rewards for contributing resources like spare computing power, storage space, or internet bandwidth. Examples of these DePINs include WeatherXM for climate intelligence, Proto Mapper for geospatial data, Wicrypt and Althea for internet access, and Aethir for computing power.
Permanent information storage
Arweave aims to provide permanent, censorship-resistant decentralised data storage and guarantees at least 200 years of data preservation. Such permanent storage infrastructure has opened up more pathways like on-chain cultural heritage documentation and tamper-proof investigative journalism reports.
SDG #10: Reduced Inequalities
Reduce inequality within and among countries.
Educational, financial, and gender inclusion
Web3 has been instrumental in promoting financial, educational, and gender inclusion. In addition to the gender inclusion initiatives listed in SDG #5, GIDA, ReFi Talents, Kernel, BlockchainUNN, and other institution-based Web3 communities are working at the intersection of educational and financial inclusion. RemittDAO strictly focuses on financial inclusion for people who can’t get banking services due to national policies, for example immigrants without government-issued identification, asylum seekers, and refugees.
SDG #11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.
Inclusive and decentralised community planning
OASA and Traditional Dream Factory are at the forefront of sustainability-first community planning. CityDAO uses NFTs and a DAO to grant land governance rights to community members.
DePIN device data to improve quality of life
A natural benefit of DePINs is the vast data they produce. This data can be used to better understand the world around us and reward the owner of the device that created the data. As examples, Silencio Network generates noise pollution data, while Element and PlanetWatch generate air-quality data.
SDG #12: Responsible Consumption And Production
Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.
Supply-chain tracking
Companies are utilising blockchain-based tracking systems to improve transparency and traceability of their supply chains. Examples include the IBM Food Trust for food retail, the MediLedger Network for pharmaceutical supplies, Tracr for diamond supply, and Fishcoin for seafood traceability.
SDG #13: Climate Action
Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.
On-chain ecological credits
Web3 is supporting new and more inclusive approaches to digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (dMRV). There’s Regen Network with 500,000+ credits retired of 2+ million in its registry, and 40+ ecological methodologies. Open Forest Protocol has over 80 projects registered and 4,880 hectares of forest monitored. Shamba Network uses satellite data to provide affordable dMRV to smallholder farmers.
On-chain carbon marketplaces
Marketplaces are one of Web3's best use cases. Although not a solution to the issues with carbon markets on their own, they are a key component. Toucan Protocol has facilitated a trading volume of US$2 billion with 300,000+ carbon credits verifiably retired. Senken, Thallo, and Neutral are other examples.
Impact currencies and investment instruments
$EARTH is an impact currency that invests in Web3 regenerative finance (ReFi) projects and returns the yield to holders. penomo lets people issue green bonds to fund solar projects. Alternun is transforming mining reserves into impact-focused projects through digital exploitation.
SDG #14: Life Below Water
Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Supporting marine conservation through Impact NFTs
Impact NFTs allow people to participate in marine conservation through donations and promotion. An example is the OceanDrop NFT auction hosted by the Open Earth Foundation where $130,000 was raised for the foundation to support marine conservation projects.
Plastic waste removal from the ocean
Another way Web3 facilitates life below water is by incentivising plastic removal from oceans. ReSea employs local communities to clean up marine environments and tracks the collection data on-chain. Since 2021, ReSea has removed 2.5+ million kilograms of plastic from water bodies. The Aquapurge Project, Plastic Bank, and Empower also leverage Web3 to incentivise plastic clean-up from oceans.
SDG #15: Life on Land
Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss.
Reforestation
Treegens is paying people to plant trees. Silvi is taking it a step further by allowing people to track the growth and impact of the trees they plant using data from satellites and other sources.
Rewilding and conservation
Rewilding and wildlife conservation through on-chain funding initiatives is another way Web3 helps conserve life on land. R3wild acquires savannah land in Africa to create protected zones for wildlife. It has already acquired 6+ million hectares of land and protected 2,000+ species. Unchained Elephants rescues elephants from Thailand's entertainment and tourism industry by selling NFTs.
SDG #16: Peace, Justice And Strong Institutions
Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
Decentralised identity and reputation
Decentralised "on-chain" identity has emerged as an alternative identity system not just in our digital world but for cases such as processing displaced people. Space ID, Galxe, Proof of Humanity, Gitcoin Passport, and Disco are examples of companies working in this direction.
Decentralised dispute resolution (DDR)
Kleros and Aragon Court are using Web3 incentive systems and game theory to democratise dispute resolution. Anyone can become a juror and it's a much cheaper alternative for the parties in dispute. Kleros, for example, has resolved 1,600+ disputes for both Web3 and non-Web3 clients.
SDG #17: Partnerships for the Goals
Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development.
Grant funding
Web3 grants are crucial in funding and supporting projects that drive innovation in and out of the Web3 ecosystem. They provide the necessary resources for developers and creators to bring groundbreaking ideas to life, particularly in areas typically underfunded by conventional capital sources. As more projects receive support and come to fruition, they contribute to the general public's wider adoption and understanding of Web3 technologies. Examples include Gitcoin, Giveth, Octant and RetroPGF.
Why isn't Web3 getting more recognition?
Herein lies the puzzle: if Web3 is being used this much to achieve the SDGs, why aren't these efforts getting more recognition?
Slow adoption beyond cryptocurrency trading
The truth is that many people still don't understand Web3, so they wouldn't even recognise SDG initiatives built on it. User adoption remains slow for a variety of reasons, much of it due to the perceived lack of real-world use cases and challenging mobile usability. The cryptocurrency market's high volatility, news of hacks and exploits, and general lack of consumer protection also play a role in undermining user trust in the tech.
Almost no media coverage
Another factor is the lack of media coverage, even by crypto media themselves. To quantify this, I scanned the popular crypto news outlets listed by CoinLedger. Sadly, searches for "SDGs", "Sustainable Development Goals", and "regenerative finance (ReFi)" yielded only a handful of articles, most of which were outdated. The headlines were instead dominated by Bitcoin price movements, market predictions, and ETF talk.
Perceived lack of credibility
Although not always the case, there does seem to be this perception that Web3-based projects and companies aren't serious or credible. This of course stems partly from the larger belief that blockchain isn't a value-adding technology, but also from things like the desire for pseudonymity in Web3 and a shortage of scientists.
Conclusion
While this is by no means an exhaustive list of Web3 projects making impact towards SDGs, it does provide a indication of just how much work is being done (and how little is known about that work). I hope I was able to shed some light on the space and provide useful context for future discussions. It's important to not overstate Web3's impact, however. We need to be realistic about where it can truly add value so that we can build credible narratives and shift public opinion.
More by Trinity Morphy
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This article represents the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of CARBON Copy.