Web3 ecosystem made 'good strides' in changing climate narrative, exec says

cointelegraph.com:

While moving to proof-of-stake (PoS) contributes to changing the narrative of blockchains being harmful to the environment, there are still many things that the Web3 ecosystem can do to tackle climate change, according to Marek Olszewski, the CEO of Celo, an Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution. 

Cointelegraph editor Zhiyuan Sun spoke with Olszewski about the threat of climate change, the benefit of using blockchain-based systems for carbon offsets and various ways that projects can offset their carbon footprint.

According to Olszewski, as climate change remains a threat to humanity, companies and projects are steering towards becoming carbon neutral. He said: 

The Celo executive believes that the broader Web3 ecosystem has been making “really good strides” in terms of being able to change the narrative around blockchain’s impact on the environment. Last year, the community celebrated the Ethereum Merge, the blockchain’s shift from the energy-intensive proof-of-work (PoW) consensus to the more environmentally friendly proof-of-state (PoS) mechanism.

Olszewski believes that the Merge as well as the move from various teams within Web3 to offset or commit to offsetting their carbon footprints helps the space in two ways. Firstly, it attracts people who were previously put off by those who argue that blockchains are not good for the environment. Secondly, the executive highlighted that this leaves room for innovation within the regenerative finance (ReFi) ecosystem. 

“At the very least, I think we've started to shift the narrative, which I think is both really good for the crypto industry because I think it pulls more people in [...] and it's created a safe space to innovate within the ReFi ecosystem,” Olszewski said.

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