Karino AyakoIn October 2020, Japan declared that it will become carbon neutral by 2050; and in April 2021, it announced that it will aim to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 46% by fiscal year 2030 based on fiscal year 2013 levels, as well as continue in its own challenge to reach 50%.
Responding to the government’s action, Saga City in Saga Prefecture has been working on various environmental measures. Under the keywords of “Resource Recycling,” “Carbon Cycle,” “Circulation of People,” and “Economic Cycle,” both citizens and businesses have been rethinking the importance of what they have to offer in their prefecture, and they have been finding ways to improve their environment, economy, and society while making effective use of their local resources. Their framework “Saga City Regional Circulation Symbiotic Area Concept” aims to refine what the city is working on while making use of the characteristics and local resources of Saga City in an attempt to create an independent and decentralized society.
As part of their concept, the city has created a system that visualizes the regional circulation of such things as electricity on a real-time basis. By utilizing local production and local consumption of waste generated power, it has succeeding in converting its environmental value into an electronic certificate. Saga made this a reality with the help from two companies based in Fukuoka. The first company is called Chaintope, a company dedicated to becoming an ecosystem and hub for the implementation of blockchain technology into services and business. The second company who supported Saga City’s transformation is Miyama Power HD, whose mission is to support the creation of local communities through electricity generation.
Together they started building the system in January 2021 and completed it in July 2021. Using a blockchain called Tapyrus that was developed by Chaintope, Saga City succeeded in disclosing the city’s environmental value in a form of an electronic certificate that can be universally to confirm its authenticity. It’s the first time for a local government to succeed in converting environmental value into an electronic certificate using blockchain technology.
An example of their achievement would be the visualization of the usage of renewable electricity supply services available to watch at Saga City’s public facilities, including the Higasasu visitor center. It’s also worth checking out the vizualization of the renewable energy generated by biomass power generation at Saga City Waste Disposal Factory. This data was automatically recorded using blockchain technology on a real time basis. An “Environmental Value Certificate” was issued as proof that the electricity was truly produced and consumed locally in Saga City. Moreover, the city also succeeded in visualizing its local food production, consumption rate, renewable energy consumption amount, and CO2 reduction amount on a real time basis, using accurate data recorded in the blockchain.
By visualizing environmental value through blockchain technology like this, Saga City hopes to promote the value of the region and inspire its residents to think and act in a different way. Not only does the city expect that the initiatives will lead to reducing carbon in the future, but it also hopes it will lead to disaster countermeasures and regional revitalization.
