Big data can help deliver sustainability in Web3

There is little doubt that the discussion about a future built on Web3 and the rise of the metaverse will increase in the coming years. This also means the urgency of developing sustainable initiatives.

The potential of the metaverse is huge. Experts speak of an entirely new reality that exists in a purely digital space. This Web3 construct will pave the way for collaboration, communication and socialization in ways that are still hard to imagine.

At the heart of this new technological revolution will be big data. The sheer volume of data users will produce in the Web3 era means intelligent insights won’t be far off. Crucially, the growth of big data can also help solve some of the world’s biggest sustainability challenges.

Before looking at how Web3 can help deliver sustainability, it’s worth taking a speculative look at how the environment could be impacted by the metaverse. With massive amounts of people around the world choosing to spend much of their time connected to a digital world, we could see fuel consumption drop as fewer people have to travel. However, the sheer computational power required to fully immerse a user in the metaverse will be enormous, with Intel claims that computers need to be 1000 times more powerful than they are today to meet the additional demands.

This will inevitably bring environmental issues to the fore when the metaverse emerges. But can Web3 and the rise of big data help address sustainability issues – and even improve the world’s green credentials? Let’s take a closer look at how big data can pave the way for a more environmentally friendly future in the age of Web3:

Sophisticated product lifecycle assessments

One way companies are already using big data analytics to improve their green credentials is through the development of product lifecycle assessments that can evaluate the overall environmental impact of their production lines, product use, and subsequent disposal.

These reviews help illuminate a product’s timeline in a transparent manner, ensuring accountability. Factors such as the extraction of materials from the environment, the production process, the use phase and what happens to the product when it reaches the end of its life cycle can all be a burden on the environment, but big data can provide clarity at every stage .

In a web3 landscape, such in-depth data analysis can seem cumbersome in terms of the processing power that would be used to perform these comprehensive assessments. But cloud-based data storage can help alleviate this problem as businesses move away from local disk usage.

According to EY dataWhile internet traffic and data center volume increased 16.9 times and 9.4 times respectively between 2010 and 2020, data center energy efficiency increased by only 1.1 times over the same period.

This provides an opportunity for the data center industry to become more environmentally friendly, with cloud computing offering a lower cost per gigabyte and increased data redundancy, driving further expansion of the cloud to accommodate data in the era of Web3.

As companies innovate with a greater focus on sustainability, advanced lifecycle impact assessments can help create balanced strategies that are fully functional within the cloud.

One of the biggest challenges for sustainable business is the wider impact of a company’s environmental footprint. For example, in the case of the carbon footprint of the multinational pharmaceutical company GSK, 20% falls within the company’s own boundaries80% of which comes from indirect emissions, such as the use of its products.

Big data will help shed light on this more translucent aspect of sustainability by revealing the more nuanced aspects of business’s relationship with the environment.

With Web3 transformation taking center stage, we’re likely to see big data platforms provide insights into how existing physical products can be replicated in the digital world, and the wealth of customer usage data as they live, work and socialize online will help to much-needed clarity about how companies really contribute to caring for the environment.

The natural world is an extremely complex place, and big data in the age of Web3 will provide numerous insights into how ESG-conscious companies can adapt their existing goods and services to an immersive digital environment as a means to amplify their environmental performance.

Gamified Sustainability

Big data can also help generate a more sustainability-focused user base among the billions of users expected to eventually embrace the metaverse.

This could be an important step in the fight against climate change, as a recent study of 2 billion social media posts found that behavioral behavior is one of the biggest barriers to a sustainable future. With users increasingly willing to normalize climatic conditions, these conditions may become easier to ignore.

Big data can remedy this mindset by developing immersive Web3 experiences that can anticipate our behavioral problems and create virtual reality learning opportunities that take audiences on a sustainability journey that can lead to greater awareness, more environmentally focused purchasing habits, and a stronger desire to avoid bad recycling and energy consumption habits.

Gaming becomes a central focus of the metaverseand we are already seeing gamified sustainability solutions being developed with the aim of helping the environment.

There is perhaps no stronger example of gamified sustainability in action than Alóki, an NFT-based blockchain game in which users can build their own virtual paradise based on 3D LIDAR scans of real Costa Rican jungle. Alóki founders Maurycy Krzastek and Bartek Lechowski bought the plot of land that would become Costa Rica’s Alóki Sanctuary for $30 million, and now in-game users’ actions can help plant trees and nurture wildlife. within the 750-year-old acre stretch of jungle.

With big data that helps companies understand the user sentiment towards sustainability based on their actions in the metaverse, it can become much easier to help users learn in an immersive and gamified way.

While the transition to life within the metaverse will be a long one, the foundations are now being laid. For a prosperous future, big data and sustainability must be at the heart of developing this brave new digital frontier.

Dmytro Spilka is the main wizard at Solvid.