Blockchain as Climate Infrastructure: Why Canada’s Economic Framing Falls Short
Katie Campbell
This article argues that Canada’s policy framing of blockchain as primarily an economic and financial tool often overlooks its potential role in climate governance. While Canada has committed to ambitious emissions reductions under the Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, federal discussions largely treat blockchain as a tool for digital markets rather than as governance infrastructure. The article contends that blockchain’s core value lies in its capacity to support coordination, transparency, and verification across complex regulatory systems. Drawing on international examples of environmental monitoring and supply-chain traceability, this article demonstrates how blockchain-supported systems can strengthen the integrity and reliability of climate-related data.
Image credit to istockphoto.com
Canada has set clear climate goals that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions while supporting economic growth and good jobs. [1] Under the Canadian Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, the country committed to reducing emissions by at least 40 to 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030, by 45 to 50 percent by 2035, and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. [2]
Within this policy framework, blockchain technology is absent as a tool to regulate climate. Federal policy discussions often frame blockchain primarily as an economic development instrument, emphasizing its potential to drive innovation, attract investment, and support emerging digital markets. [3] This framing matters. As Canada works toward a net-zero economy, the positioning and regulation of blockchain will shape whether it becomes a climate liability, a missed opportunity, or a lever for sustainable growth.
What is Blockchain, Really?
The government of Canada defines blockchain as “a visible online record of transactions,” and it is most commonly understood as the technology underlying cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. [4] A transaction is only added to a shared digital ledger, which is a continuously updated record of activity, after it is checked by multiple computers (called “nodes”) that follow the blockchains agreed-upon validation rule. [5] These computers work together through what is known as a “consensus algorithm” to confirm that the transaction is legitimate before it is permanently recorded. [6] Each transaction is time-stamped and added to the ledger in a way that makes it tamper-resistant and auditable. [7] Traditionally, cryptocurrencies use blockchain to enable peer-to-peer transactions without intermediaries such as banks. [8] While this description is accurate, it is incomplete. By framing blockchain primarily through cryptocurrency transactions, government discourse implicitly treats blockchain as a financial product rather than as a governance tool.
This is a narrow understanding of the capabilities of blockchain technology.
Blockchain is not about currency, but about coordination. It allows multiple actors, including governments, companies, communities, and individuals, to rely on a shared, verifiable record of information without requiring full trust in a central authority or intermediary. [9] Blockchain technology creates an “immutable source of truth” in systems where information may otherwise be fragmented, contested, or difficult to verify. [10] Therefore, blockchain’s function has direct relevance beyond financial technology.
Blockchain as a Climate Governance Tool
Effective climate action depends on accurate data, reliable verification, and coordination across governments, industries, and communities. Many of the challenges facing climate policy stem from fragmented reporting systems, slow verification processes, and limited trust in climate claims. [11] Blockchain is particularly well-suited to addressing these challenges. [12]
International Organizations
The United Nations has identified blockchain’s capacity for traceability, verification, and secure data coordination as potentially valuable for sustainability objectives, including emissions monitoring, supply-chain transparency, and environmental reporting. [13] The use of blockchain-supported systems is not a substitute for the law; however, it can be used as an infrastructural tool that can support legal enforcement by improving the integrity, traceability and credibility of regulatory data. [14] For example, the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora relies heavily on a paper-based permit system to regulate trade in endangered species. [15] However, a blockchain-supported system could reduce risks of error and manipulation by creating an immutable record of issued and processed permits. [16] Additionally, the World Wide Fund for Nature has partnered with technology developers to use blockchain-supported systems to track tuna supply-chain data from vessel to distributor, reducing opportunities for illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. [17]
Outside Canada
Other jurisdictions, like the European Union (EU), are treating blockchain as climate infrastructure. The EU frames blockchain as a tool to improve “transparency, accountability and traceability” in climate action initiatives. [18] In the EU’s approach, blockchain-supported systems enable more accurate, standardized, and verifiable emissions data, including through smart contracts that allow real-time authentication, reporting, and tracking of emissions reductions across entire value chains rather than isolated actors. [19] Climate action is treated as a networked exercise that links manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, consumers, governments, and citizens within shared systems of record, making individual contributions visible and comparable. This governance-oriented framing is reflected in concrete regulation, including the EU Deforestation Regulation, which requires traceability, due diligence, and data sharing across global supply chains. [20] The regulation is increasingly understood as a domain in which blockchain and distributed ledger technologies can support compliance, interoperability and cross-border enforcement at scale.
Canada
Canada’s use of blockchain for climate action has largely emerged through private institutions and philanthropic initiatives, rather than as a coordinated government initiative. For example, the Royal Bank of Canada partnered with the Gordon Foundation to integrate blockchain technology into DataStream, an open-access platform used to monitor water quality across major Canadian watersheds, including Lake Winnipeg. [21] DataStream aggregates phosphorous and water-quality data collected by government scientists, researchers, Indigenous communities, and citizen monitoring groups coordinated by the Lake Winnipeg Foundation. [22] These systems address a core governance problem where fragmented environmental data is difficult to verify, compare, or rely on for policy decisions.
Similarly, in the agri-food sector, work led by Farmers Edge with the Standards Council of Canada has focused on developing interoperability standards for agricultural blockchain systems that enable verified “farm-to-fork” traceability. [23] These systems use decentralized ledgers to securely record, timestamp, and verify real-time, field-level agricultural data across multiple actors in the supply chain, addressing long-standing problems of data inconsistency, fragmentation and trust. [24] By creating shared standards for how data is exchanged and validated, agricultural blockchain platforms support traceability linked to deforestation risk, emissions intensity, and land-use impacts. [25]
Ultimately, these examples show that blockchain is already performing climate-related governance functions in Canada, particularly in areas such as environmental data integrity and supply-chain traceability. However, these efforts remain largely disconnected from Canada’s climate policy framework and are driven by private or hybrid actors rather than by public regulatory strategy. As other jurisdictions begin to treat blockchain as infrastructure for transparency, accountability, and traceability in climate action, Canada risks overlooking a tool it is already using in other domains/sectors. Recognizing blockchain’s potential within its climate infrastructure would allow Canada to align existing practices with its climate commitments and to deploy a technology already in use more deliberately and at scale.
Katie Campbell is a second-year BCL/JD student at the Faculty of Law at McGill University. She completed her undergraduate studies in political science at Western University and worked in politics before beginning law school. Her academic interests include the relationship between law, emerging technologies, and regulatory governance, with a particular focus on how legal frameworks respond to technological change. She would like to thank the McGill Journal of Sustainable Development Law for the opportunity to contribute as a student author, and she extends special thanks to Senior Editor Salomé Genest-Brissette and Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Foster for their thoughtful feedback and guidance on this article.
[1] Government of Canada, Climate Change: Our Plan (3 November 2025), online: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/environment/weather/climatechange/climate-plan.html.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, Crypto Assets (27 November 2025), online: https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-agency/services/payment/digital-currency.html.
[4] Ibid.
[5] S Gomathi, Mabel Finney & PJ Beslin Pajila, “Blockchain: A Review of Protocols and Standards” in E Golden Julie, J Jesu Vedha Nayahi & Noor Zaman Jhanjhi, eds, Blockchain Technology: Fundamentals, Applications, and Case Studies (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2021) at 13-21.
[6] Ibid at 17.
[7] Ibid at 15.
[8] Ibid at 14-15.
[9] Blockchain Technology and Environmental Sustainability, United Nations Environment Programme, 2020, online: https://wedocs.unep.org/rest/api/core/bitstreams/2a0e2fcc-2194-4cb4-9b61-6595dce22c7d/content at 2.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid at 3.
[12] John Taskinsoy, “Blockchain: An Unorthodox Solution to Reduce Global Warming” (2019) online: SSRN https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3475144 at 8.
[13] Blockchain Technology and Environmental Sustainability, supra note 9 at 2.
[14] PJ Beslin Pajila, E Golden Julie & S Gomathi, “Blockchain and Internet of Things: A Survey” in E Golden Julie, J Jesu Vedha Nayahi & Noor Zaman Jhanjhi, eds, Blockchain Technology: Fundamentals, Applications, and Case Studies (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2021) at 10.
[15] Blockchain Technology and Environmental Sustainability, supra note 9 at 3.
[16] Ibid at 3.
[17] Ibid at 3.
[18] European Commission, “Blockchain for Climate Action” (25 October 2024), online (webpage): https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/blockchain-climate-action.
[19] Ibid .
[20] European Commission, European Blockchain Sandbox: Best Practices Report, 2nd Cohort (2025), online: https://blockchain-observatory.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2025-05/Best%20practices%20report%20%28updated%2008.05.2025%29.pdf at 73.
[21] Royal Bank of Canada, “Using Blockchain to Protect Canada’s Freshwater Lakes”, online (webpage): https://www.rbcwealthmanagement.com/en-ca/community/insights/using-blockchain-to-protect-canadas-freshwater-lakes.
[22] Ibid .
[23] Standards Council of Canada, “Blockchain Brings New Level of Trust to Agriculture” (8 December 2020), online (webpage): https://scc-ccn.ca/resources/news/blockchain-brings-new-level-trust-agriculture.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Taskinsoy, supra note 12 at 7.