Blockchain has been the potential to affect sustainability reporting. At its core is the ability to create records that are more credible and more resistant to fraud – similar to sharable online documents in which anyone can see or prevent manipulation of records. Blockchain solves problems regarding the lack of information. With its transparent, unforgeable, and secure data, everyone could have access to a substantial amount of information.
Emerging technologies like blockchain have a crucial role in energy transition and achieving the Paris climate goal of 1.5 degrees, as they can become a technological bridge towards the energy transition of the 21st century. To evade climate risk, the net carbon emissions of our planet need to be zero by 2050, limiting global warming to 1.5 °C. This need has accelerated the energy transition towards decarbonization, digitization, and decentralization.
Mechanisms
Different blockchains have distinct consensus protocols and algorithms used to verify transactions. Proof of Stake (PoS) and Proof of Work (PoW) are the two most common consensus protocols to date, though others are emerging.
The early-stage blockchain protocols that adopt proof of work mechanism challenges the environment due to the high level of energy consumption. However, the evidence of the staking mechanism of second-generation blockchain protocols and the lower level of energy consumption is promising for this challenge.
By design, proof-of-work blockchains require high levels of energy consumption, and in fact, high energy consumption is a cost that inherently prevents the addition of malicious blocks. Instead of using computing power to verify transactions, proof-of-stake blockchains verify transactions by locking away some coins as “stake.” In turn, the stake gets an additional reward for successfully verifying the transaction or destroyed if there is a mistake or fraud.

Consumption of Energy

As blockchains use an enormous amount of energy, instead of using non-renewable sources of energy, renewable sources of energy can be preferred for power production. Integrating renewable energy sources as the resource comes with an opportunity to utilize the unemployed resources less harm the environment.

Fact check  

1. 100,000 visa transaction consumes 148.63 kwh
2. 1 Ethereum transaction consumes 136.35 kwh
3. 100, 000 Rubix transactions consumes 0.174 kwh 

Renewable energy sources cause less pollution and will not increase the carbon footprint. Reducing the energy consumption of the blockchains is the need of the hour. If these challenges can be overcome, blockchains will become the best option for the future world.

Comparatively, it can also be seen that Proof-of-Work uses the maximum energy. So, switching to other protocols like Proof-of-Stake or DPos or Proof-of-Authority can help in reducing the energy consumption for validating blocks or transactions.