Forget Bit coin. I’ll let the get-rich-quick crowd focus on this and its crypto currency cousins.

I’m excited about the hard-working underlying technology that makes Bit coin possible — the block chain ledger system — and its potential to revolutionize corporate sustainability and social impact.

Right now, we are experiencing a crisis in cultural confidence. We don’t trust our institutions because they are all talk and no action. We view corporations with suspicion. This is why I believe the block chain dramatically will change the way we view, influence and forge trust in companies based on proof, not words.

Block chain has the potential to flip this on its head. That's because it can authenticate a richer, more accurate global ledger of a company’s actual social and environmental performance, providing society with a more realistic assessment of its impact.

Decentralized by nature, block chain can democratize reporting and assessment beyond the self-interest of management and company-paid consultants to include holistic audiences connected to the corporation through a currently unmeasured value chain. Think about it: Customers and employees, investors and nonprofits, mayors’ offices and neighborhoods, a supply chain from organic farmers to industrial parts manufacturers to shipping firms — all independently verifying their interactions in a company’s social and environmental performance.

Here’s where tokens, a type of crypto currency, come in handy: Tokens provide incentives for stakeholders measuring a company’s ESG performance — whether that’s to record miles traveled and energy consumed in transport or to review the impact of a company’s volunteering initiatives in the community. Tokens even could be used to reward a company for improving its public benefit.

ESG performance measured via block chain could be time-stamped and 100 percent verified by all participants in the network. And would be immutable — meaning that the information could not be erased, fudged or corrected without the unanimous consent of all involved. 
One issue: block chain technology consumes considerable energy, a challenge that will need to be addressed. 

Block chain will shine light on corporate performance, but just as important it will reward purpose-driven, social-impact businesses that are already intentionally working to create public benefit.

Source:Green Biz

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Picture credit to: PHÚC LONG