A Novel Credible Carbon Footprint Traceability System for Low Carbon Economy Using Blockchain Technology

Chunhua Ju, Zhonghua Shen (), Fuguang Bao, Pengtong Weng, Yihang Xu and Chonghuan Xu
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Chunhua Ju: Department of Modern Business Research Center, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China
Zhonghua Shen: School of Management Engineering and E-Business, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China
Fuguang Bao: Department of Modern Business Research Center, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China
Pengtong Weng: School of Management Engineering and E-Business, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China
Yihang Xu: School of Management Engineering and E-Business, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China
Chonghuan Xu: Academy of Zhejiang Culture Industry Innovation and Development, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou 310018, China

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 16, 1-16

Abstract: To achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, many countries have established regional carbon emission trading markets and tried to build a low-carbon economic system. At present, the implementation of carbon emission trading and low-carbon economic systems faces many challenges such as manipulation, corruption, opacity, lack of trust, and lack of data tracking means. The application of blockchain technology can perfectly solve the above problems. However, the data recorded on a blockchain are often multi-type and heterogeneous, and users at different levels such as regulators, enterprises, and consumers have different requirements for data types and granularity. This requires a quick and trustworthy method for monitoring the carbon footprint of enterprises and products. In this paper, the carbon footprint traceability of enterprises and products is taken as an application scenario, and the distributed traceability concept of “traceability off the chain and verification on the chain” is adopted. By reconstructing the pointer of the file structure of the distributed storage, an interactive traceability structure supporting type filtering is constructed, which enables fast retrieval and locating of carbon emission data in the mixed data on the chain. The experimental results show that using the interactive traceability structure that supports type filtering for traceability not only releases the computing power of full nodes but also greatly improves the traceability efficiency of the long-span transaction chain. The proposed carbon footprint traceability system can rapidly trace and track data on an enterprise’s and a product’s carbon footprint, as well as meet the needs of users at all levels for traceability. It also offers more advantages when handling large amounts of data requests.

Keywords: carbon emission trading; carbon footprint; blockchain; IPFS; interactive traceability; traceability off the chain; type filtering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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