**3. Blockchain for sustainability**

Sustainability is related to the effect that current actions will have upon the future. Such an effect can take many forms that vary depending on their nature, like the utilization of natural resources as a part of production processes, the waste management processes, the effects of competition among corporations in the same market, the enrichment of the community by creating employment, the produced pollution, the outbreak of a pandemic, or the relation with regulators. For example, if natural resources run out, then they may be no longer available (i.e., raw

EC strategy to undertake the United Nations (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development [2]. The 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) involve the three dimensions of sustainability (economic, social, and environmental) and require all the stakeholders to act in a global collaborative partnership. Such goals aim to achieve no poverty and hunger, to grant access to health services, to improve infrastructures, to reduce inequality, to fight climate change, to protect marine ecosystems, or to promote alliances between different actors to improve people's

Emerging technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT), 3D/4D printing, augmented reality/mixed reality/virtual reality (AR/MR/VR), cyber-physical systems (CPSs), robotics, novel human-machine interfaces (HMI), artificial intelligence (AI), big data techniques, machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), 5G/6G connectivity, and new computing paradigms, when oriented toward SDGs, will bring a wide range of disruptive solutions in multiple fields. Nonetheless, the mentioned technologies will create ever-increasing complex systems in terms of heterogeneity, autonomy, interoperability, and scalability that will also come with

Distributed ledger technology (DLT) represents nowadays an evolution toward

In this context, blockchain and other DLTs can enable global partnerships for open innovation and cyber-resilient applications compliant with the aims of the EU Green Deal and the UN SDGs. Thus, the contribution of this chapter is to provide a global overview of blockchain as an enabler for sustainability and open innovation. In addition, its aim is also to make the different involved stakeholders to rethink global development challenges to create cyber-resilient, decentralized, and high-

The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 overviews the basic

blockchain for sustainability and open innovation. Section 5 presents some relevant use cases of blockchain-based applications toward each of the SDGs. Section 6 summarizes the key main benefits of blockchain for SDGs and their main open

A blockchain is a secured distributed ledger whose data are shared among peers [6–9]. In some blockchains like Bitcoin, decentralized miners validate every transaction (by following a consensus protocol), which allows them to solve the Byzantine Generals Problem (i.e., a situation where different parties must agree on a strategy and some of them may be corrupt, disseminate false information, or have intention to deceive). In the case of cryptocurrencies, the problem to be solved is called the double-spend problem: it must be guaranteed that the exchanged digital

concepts of blockchain. Sections 3 and 4 summarize the main principles of

challenges. Finally, Section 7 is devoted to conclusions.

the so-called Web 3.0, the Internet of Value. This new era of the Internet will include a collaborative economy among peers with crowdsourcing data sharing systems [3, 4]. A blockchain is a specific type of DLT that involves timestamped blocks of transactions linked in a chain by cryptographic hashes. Blockchain presents a decentralized architecture that provides benefits in terms of security, privacy, non-repudiation, integrity, accountability, transparency, robustness, and authentication. Moreover, it provides a high operational efficiency and eliminates the need for centralized parties and/or intermediaries. In fact, the World Economic Forum (WEF) forecasts that, by 2027, 10% of the global gross domestic product

additional cybersecurity risks and threats of malicious attacks.

(GDP) will likely be stored on DLTs [5].

impact sustainable developments.

**2. Basic concepts of blockchain**

cash was not spent previously [6].

**100**

lives, among others.

*Computer Security Threats*
