NFT Carbon Offsetting: The Necessity, Utility and Future

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been swirling around within the investment and finance world for about two years now, and the phenomenon is only gaining traction for future expansion. On April 19, 2022, the NFT world flew quite literally into space. Axiom Space, the world’s first commercial space station, joined the roster of entities and organisations developing and minting NFTs from outer space. And being environmentally conscious, they have declared their fellowship with the concerns over the sustainable future for NFTs. They are relying on carbon offsets to minimise the greenhouse gas footprint produced by their operations. And with the famous and still the most expensive auction house Christie’s digital art selling in March 2021 for USD 69 million, it still shows that the NFT industry is highly sought after, immeasurably yielding and unprecedently promising. And the phenomenon is not going anywhere — the same as the following necessity for its sustainable solutions.

The environmental impact stems not so much from the NFTs themselves, but rather the way they are created. These processes are highly energy-intensive and to this day most of them are produced by employing the abundantly-polluting proof-of-work blockchain consensus mechanism. However, the second part of the year 2021 and the current year have seen NFT projects and businesses veering toward the goals of becoming a carbon-neutral or net-zero carbon emission environment. Minting an NFT does not need to be this energy-costly anymore.

Even if traditional ways of managing NFTs — from inception (minting and mining) to storing and transferring — still consume exorbitant amounts of energy, many blockchain networks are already transforming themselves from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake consensus mechanism architecture, e.g. Ethereum. Proof-of-stake method does not require the extensive use of computing power and hardware, thus, no more traditional competition amongst proof-of-work miners for consuming the most energy available to successfully mine a block.

Further, many more creative methods are being invoked to address the NFT sustainability question. Among those are:

• Investing in and using renewable energy — this means, energy consumed for NFT managing may be used as renewable energy. If not the direct approach of using sustainable energy sources, another solution is putting profits gained from NFT transactions to work. That is, devoting financial proceedings to renewable energy investments.
• Investing in technological innovation for future sustainability — devoting said proceedings for developing technologies to combat climate change directly.
• Investing in carbon offset financial instruments — engaging in carbon markets, whether investing in carbon offsets, carbon allowances or renewable energy registries and certificates.

Bearing all of this in mind, Solana, Ethereum and a few other blockchain networks are leading in the sustainability Olympics by openly engaging in proof-of-stake and proof-of-history adaptations and supporting a broad range of NFT marketplaces, metaverses and Web3 NFT functionality.

Since NFT minters are usually of a creative and climate-conscious type, more and more NFT and environment-friendly projects alike are sprouting. Here are a few project examples that uphold climate positivity, as well as the creativity and possibilities of the NFT technology:

1. Sunken Blimp. A metaverse vehicle for aspiring digital architects, designers, VR and AR enthusiasts and a prominent launchpad. They encompass interdisciplinary design explorations and ups the ante for NFT ideas.
2. ZooLife. A virtual zoo that livestreams its animals within the Spatial ecosystem. They design animal experiences that come to life within the landscapes of nature photographs inside a metaverse.
3. National Parks NFT. A hub of sorts for nature enthusiasts to showcase their NFTs among their peers. NFTs held and transacted give you points to support and attend real-life natural parks, proceeding with conserving wildlife and biodiversity.

Hence, NFTs and climate positivity appear to go hand in hand moving forward. And the only conundrum the NFT world seeks to solve is the presence and constant evolution of tools to keep NFTs environmentally friendly. This is where projects, such as Enrex hold sway.

Enrex’s Take on NFT Carbon Offsetting

Having been a member of Impact NFT Alliance for some time now, Enrex has become one of the industry’s leading greenhouse gas offset providers. Everything cryptocurrency and blockchain — Enrex delivers!

In the last months or so, Enrex has been building a state-of-the-art decentralised application (dapp) for NFT collection offsets, and it has been the top priority for Enrex. More on that — in a Medium article. Future sneak peeks into the workings and applications of the platform are coming soon.

Being a fully-fledged member of the Impact NFT Alliance, Enrex has shown prowess in standard-bearing for making the NFT industry as ‘green’ as possible. Impact NFT Alliance has demonstrated that NFTs can fund sustainable projects around the world and have a clear environmental impact. Not only that, but the Alliance has become a confirmation tool that the funding provided for an environmental cause is right and just.

Furthermore, Enrex has enlisted many NFT projects during its first year of operation and has offset their collections, transactions and other activities manually only to develop further — an automated NFT offsetting device as a separate use case for the project.

Here is the always expanding list of Enrex’s NFT partnerships and mutually beneficial utilities that we have attained so far:

• BOSS Bears — a digital bear art NFT collection generated from 250,000 property possibilities.
• McAfee Punks — an NFT collection paying tribute to the industry giant and pioneer — John McAfee.
• Sollyfish — an NFT collection reflecting sea life and promoting environmental agendas.
• Artemis Vision — a marketplace of ideas and bridging creative artists and NFT tech with a social DeFi platform.
• OneRare — an NFT gaming metaverse.
• Toadboys — an NFT collection of 3,333 anthropomorphic toads from outer space, popularising Solana Network.
• CryptoBlades — a play-to-earn (P2E) NFT system enhancing the gaming experience by providing a metaverse-real life open market interactivity.
• Soul Art — an NFT marketplace brought about by the same team which created Toadboys.
• Age Of Tanks — the first military NFT strategic metaverse.
• Elef World — an NFT game with simple gameplay mechanics interacting with real-world profits for playing.
• BridXe — a marketplace for extended reality fashion incentivising real-life boutique and creator brands to expand into the NFT and metaverse territory.
• Mizushi Dragons Club — a new way to consume music via the NFTs.
• Souls Of Meta — a multi-chain play-to-earn (P2E) NFT gaming metaverse.

ENREX bolstering the notion of adapting even more prudent and technologically advanced devices for cleaning the NFT industry, and more is to come in the upcoming months.