A look at Pieland’s plan to make a positive impact on the world.
In today’s world, almost everything we do impacts the climate and the environment. This applies to Cryptocurrency and NFTs as well. That’s because every transaction made — minting an NFT, trading NFTs or purchasing crypto — generates some level of carbon footprint. This is because every transaction on the Ethereum blockchain is verified through a massive network of computers solving complex equations to authenticate each transaction. The owners of these computers are then rewarded with a small amount of Ethereum. This energy inefficiency makes up the “gas fees” for transactions on the blockchain.
Work is being done to upgrade the Ethereum blockchain to move to a more efficient and environmentally-friendly version. This proof-of-stake approach to verify transactions, known as “Ethereum 2.0”, will mean each transaction would generate less carbon footprint as less computing power is required to verify them.
However, at Pieland HQ, we feel it’s not enough to wait for a blockchain upgrade to reduce the carbon footprint of what we are baking. As such, we are publicly committing to offsetting the carbon emissions of the minting of Pieland’s Octopie NFTs. Additionally, we are also committing to offset secondary marketplace sales for at least the next three months.
How will this work?
Thanks to the transparency of the blockchain, once our Public Mint — on February 10th — is over, we will be able to evaluate how much gas was used during the minting of all of the Octopies. This is the P1 for our lead developer Bonfire once we finish the Public Mint. Next steps include estimating our climate emissions from the sales and working with an outside environmental consultant to ensure transparency and fairness.
From there, we will reach out to reputable eco-friendly organizations like Terrapass, or the range of groups that Ecosia works with. We will donate a portion of our Public Mint sales to one of these established groups committed to reducing emissions.
Once we have offset the carbon footprint from the Public Mint, we will take a similar approach for the Octopie Marketplace sales. After three months, we will total up the gas fees from secondary sales and run the same analysis. Longer-term, we will open the discussion to the community to decide how we proceed from there. The community will vote on how much we continue in this direction, including what carbon offsetting groups we work with and if we want to adjust how much we are offsetting the carbon footprint.
But that’s not all. We won’t just donate to be carbon neutral. We will donate more than required to make Octopies carbon negative. As our first commitment to that, not only will we take all the above steps after our Public Mint finishes to be carbon neutral, we will also plant at least one tree for every Octopie that comes out of the Oven. This will be done through a third-party, most likely Eden Projects, to provide plenty of transparency! The planting of these trees, combined with a donation that more than offsets the carbon emissions, allows us to truly call Octopies Carbon Negative.
So what does this mean for you? It means minting an Octopie not only guarantees you a cute Pie NFT that gives access to an exclusive community, a range of utility, and awesome events — but you can have piece of mind knowing Pieland is doing its part to be part of a greener world. That’s the Pieland phyllosophy. The same phyllosophy that will lead to us making sizable donations to multiple charities in the name of Octopies. But more on that another time!
