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David Schwartz, CTO of Ripple, spoke with Information Age about the challenges he faces in his role and how blockchain companies can reduce environmental impact. 
Ripple’s CTO has asked cryptocurrency companies to help cut carbon emissions.
Blockchain finance company Ripple recently revealed its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 by focusing on renewable energy, funding carbon removal technology and expanding partnerships with conservation bodies. Following this announcement, Ripple CTO David Schwartz expanded the organization’s sustainability initiatives, as well as the challenges the Covid-19 pandemic posed to his role.
David Schwartz, CTO of Ripple
As Ripple’s CTO, what were the biggest challenges the pandemic posed to your role and how did you overcome them?
As a global company, Ripple was well prepared for the changes in working life brought about by Covid-19. However, businesses and individuals have yet to move money around the world.
In addition to Covid-19, the remittance payments crisis is further exacerbated by the lack of an effective payment infrastructure in some of the hardest hit countries, making the role of digital payments more important than ever. Many of our clients need RippleNet, especially ODL, to relieve some of the stress caused by pre-financing.
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It is more important than ever to be able to support our customers – and their customers who rely on the ability to send money – to minimize the negative impact of the pandemic and reduce the cost of remittance payments where possible.
What measures is Ripple taking to reduce the impact of the blockchain on the environment?
As we innovate in this space and the adoption of digital payments increases, we must make long-term systemic changes in the industry to ensure that innovation does not come at the expense of our planet. Blockchain and cryptocurrency will play a key role in the future of finance, but current cryptocurrency mining methods consume excessively large amounts of energy.
Cryptocurrency players who hold themselves accountable and ultimately need to be more transparent in their energy use must start today, which is why Ripple is committed to achieving zero carbon by 2030. With this commitment, we are leading the way. charge by introducing new measures to help advance the sustainability agenda in the blockchain space.
In partnership with the Energy Web Foundation, we have co-created EW Zero, a new open source tool that will allow any blockchain to decarbonise through the purchase of renewable energy in local markets around the world. Any blockchain developer can access and leverage EW Zero, and the XRP Ledger Foundation, in partnership with Ripple, will be the first to use the tool to ensure offsets are purchased for consumption on the XRP Ledger.
Finally, we created a carbon emissions calculator to provide guidance to help cryptocurrency enthusiasts and our customers reduce their footprints and educate users about how currencies overlap in terms of sustainability.
How helpful have partnerships with conservation organizations and institutions like REBA and the Rocky Mountain Institute been in your sustainability strategy?
We partner with leading technology and conservation organizations such as REBA and Rocky Mountain Institute to ensure that all blockchains can become carbon neutral, starting with XRP Ledger.
We can’t tackle this problem alone, so these partnerships with clean industry and global financial decision makers are key to moving the agenda forward and delivering real solutions that help shape our green digital future.
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How can cryptocurrency companies reduce energy consumption and environmental impact?
Cryptocurrencies and their underlying blockchain technology are helping solve previously unsolvable problems for industries around the world and driving mainstream adoption of digital payments. However, depending on the specific cryptocurrency, the energy consumption required to hold and transfer it varies greatly.
When it comes to excessive energy consumption, cryptocurrencies running on proof-of-work networks, such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, are the culprits. These networks concentrate the mining power among users who have the most advanced hardware and the cheapest energy sources to implement, so there is no incentive to take responsibility for your carbon footprints. On the other hand, greener options are available such as XRP Ledger, which uses a low latency consensus protocol. By design, XRP Ledger was created to be a more environmentally friendly and cost-effective mechanism for transaction verification than proof-of-work networks.
To power our greener digital future, companies can partner with nonprofits and environmental organizations, such as the Energy Web Foundation, to help implement more sustainable practices and enable any blockchain to decarbonise through purchasing renewable energy in local markets. Worldwide.
