...
If there are questions of the audit process, then additional parties' smart contracts could be added to the channel so that they too could audit the emissions, while limiting who has access to a company's proprietary operating data. For example, if an environmentalist group has questions about a company's reported emissions, it could develop its own smart contract for auditing emissions. It could then ask that they be deployed, possibly by a neutral third party service provider, to the company's private channel. The smart contract could audit the data and report its results without sharing the company's data with the environmentalist group.
...
Why Open Source
There are a lot of different environmental certifications today, and the general public often doesn't know which one they could trust. Some consumers feel that any business which makes a pro-environment claim is "greenwashing," while many businesses feel that no matter what they do, it's not good enough for the radicals out there.
Part of the problem may be is that the different certifications are either opaque, proprietary, or at least highly complex. By putting the certifications down in code and making them open source, we can address this problem. Anybody can study a certification and objectively analyze its merits. Furthermore, if the code for the certifications are open source, then anybody could take an existing certification and make their own version. So if you feel that a business is using a certification that is too lax, you can make your own certification, write it as smart code, and share it with the world.
By creating an open source system to audit emissions, we would not only create a system that would help reduce the cost of carbon neutral certifications, but also make it possible for the certifications and standards to become open and transparent, so that investors, consumers, and the general public could finally trust in the climate actions that businesse are taking.
How to Get Started
While carbon audits and certifications are complex, a lot of data could be obtained automatically now. For example, utility bills, corporate travel, server usage, and shipping data could all be obtained by API calls. This means that if you work for a professional services such as software or IT consulting, an automated system using the blockchain could audit your company's emissions and certify your company as carbon neutral.