**1. Introduction**

In December 2019, the European Commission (EC) unveiled a plan to become the first climate-neutral organization worldwide by 2050. The so-called European Green Deal [1] is a roadmap for setting the sustainability and well-being of citizens at the center of policymaking and then turning climate and environmental challenges into opportunities across all policy areas. As it was created, the EU Green Deal is a commitment with sustainable development and a fundamental part of the 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 lives, among others.

There are four main types of blockchains depending on who can access the stored data (private or public blockchains) and who can manage such data

*Leveraging Blockchain for Sustainability and Open Innovation: A Cyber-Resilient Approach…*

(permissionless or permissioned blockchains). Since a blockchain can store any kind of digital information, it could be the future of all secure transactions. Moreover, blockchain enables smart contracts, which consist of self-sufficient decentralized code that is executed autonomously according to a business logic. Furthermore, some blockchain platforms can also run decentralized applications, which are com-

Another important concept is the so-called decentralized autonomous organiza-

It must be noted that a blockchain is not suited for every SDG-oriented applica-

• Trustworthy transactions are needed, but traditional databases do not cover

• The updaters are not willing to give the control of the database to a third party, and the involvement of intermediaries wants to be avoided when possible.

• A database could be used, but it is likely to be attacked (e.g., denial-of-service

tion (DAO), which can operate without requiring management hierarchy or a centralized authority [11]. The first DAO was launched in 2016 and raised \$150 million worth of Ether (ETH) in 27 days. Nevertheless, DAOs are still very immature from the legal and security standpoints (e.g., a DAO attack due to code bugs led to a more than \$50 million (ETH) theft in June 2016). Since 2016, a number of DAO initiatives have arisen (e.g., Steemit). In addition, the proliferation of DAOs is linked to the concept of decentralized autonomous society (DAS), in which citizens may be able to establish self-enforcing trade agreements without relying on cen-

monly called DApps [10].

tralized institutions of power and control.

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92371*

the application needs.

(DoS) attacks) or censored.

**3. Blockchain for sustainability**

insights on the following recent works [4, 6, 8, 13].

[6, 12, 13].

**101**

tion, which must fulfill the following main requirements:

• Data need to be updated by more than one stakeholder.

• There is a lack of trust among the entities that will update the data.

• Data redundancy in multiple distributed computers is needed.

Additional requirements could be involved, so several researchers have proposed more detailed decision frameworks about the use of blockchain

It is worth mentioning that a detailed description of the different blockchain design aspects is out of the scope of this chapter, but the reader can find additional

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

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 additional cybersecurity risks and threats of malicious attacks.

Distributed ledger technology (DLT) represents nowadays an evolution toward 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 (GDP) will likely be stored on DLTs [5].

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 highimpact sustainable developments.

The rest of the chapter is organized as follows. Section 2 overviews the basic concepts of blockchain. Sections 3 and 4 summarize the main principles of 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 challenges. Finally, Section 7 is devoted to conclusions.

## **2. Basic concepts of blockchain**

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 cash was not spent previously [6].

*Leveraging Blockchain for Sustainability and Open Innovation: A Cyber-Resilient Approach… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.92371*

There are four main types of blockchains depending on who can access the stored data (private or public blockchains) and who can manage such data (permissionless or permissioned blockchains). Since a blockchain can store any kind of digital information, it could be the future of all secure transactions. Moreover, blockchain enables smart contracts, which consist of self-sufficient decentralized code that is executed autonomously according to a business logic. Furthermore, some blockchain platforms can also run decentralized applications, which are commonly called DApps [10].

Another important concept is the so-called decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), which can operate without requiring management hierarchy or a centralized authority [11]. The first DAO was launched in 2016 and raised \$150 million worth of Ether (ETH) in 27 days. Nevertheless, DAOs are still very immature from the legal and security standpoints (e.g., a DAO attack due to code bugs led to a more than \$50 million (ETH) theft in June 2016). Since 2016, a number of DAO initiatives have arisen (e.g., Steemit). In addition, the proliferation of DAOs is linked to the concept of decentralized autonomous society (DAS), in which citizens may be able to establish self-enforcing trade agreements without relying on centralized institutions of power and control.

It must be noted that a blockchain is not suited for every SDG-oriented application, which must fulfill the following main requirements:


Additional requirements could be involved, so several researchers have proposed more detailed decision frameworks about the use of blockchain [6, 12, 13].

It is worth mentioning that a detailed description of the different blockchain design aspects is out of the scope of this chapter, but the reader can find additional insights on the following recent works [4, 6, 8, 13].
