The mining industry, currently comprised of various types of mineral and precious material miners, is currently undergoing a rapid transformation in order to meet increasingly demanding climate goals, with many of the world’s largest miners recently pledging to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The global mining industry collectively releases hundreds of millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide into the environment yearly, and drastically reducing these emissions is vital to addressing the threat of climate change. Yet the mining industry has been slow to adopt new technology for multiple reasons, including a lack of engagement from external stakeholders, production risks, and training requirements. 

To help promote more environmentally sustainable mining practices, we are pleased to announce that the Chainlink Community Grant Program is awarding C02 Labs with a social impact grant. Through this grant, C02 Labs will design and build an easy-to-use, transparent, and ESG-compliant web application that uses Chainlink oracles to provide insight into the climate practices of miners. Mining companies can drag and drop internal compliance data into this application, and the data will then be filtered and made accessible through an API. Through this API, Chainlink oracles can perform GET requests, parse the JSON file, apply specific transformations, and then make the output available to blockchains using a particular file type for enhanced reliability. 

C02 Labs aims to complete the following deliverables as a result of this grant initiative: 

• Research key mining stakeholders and develop a framework to comply with industry best practices
• Simulate a major miner’s supply chain connected to Chainlink using data inputs provided by the company
• Develop a web page with an API exposing compliance data posted through the mining company’s website to showcase transparency
• Deploy a smart contract that processes and publishes data designed to meet specific mining compliance requirements
• Create a case study or slide deck to highlight the use case to potential partners

C02 Labs is a newly developed company composed of ESG and software experts with a strong background in designing green enterprise solutions on blockchains. The C02 Labs team will be working directly with senior management at a large North American mining organization. Miners like these are increasingly realizing that they need to have an aligned and ESG-compliant supply chain. This is where C02 Labs’ Chainliked blockchain solution will offer a unique and cutting-edge solution and fill this significant gap in the marketplace. With Chainlink’s help, C02 Labs aims to increase the transparency and automation of compliance data in the mining industry.  

Commenting on the grant award, C02 Labs CTO Mario Yaksetig stated, “We are grateful to receive a grant from the Chainlink Community to begin developing a website application that can help mining companies track their environmental sustainability. Mining organizations will be able to seamlessly adopt this technology for enhanced automation that can bring them one step closer to achieving their ESG goals. Once this pilot project has been developed, it could serve as a proof of concept for increasingly advanced applications that use smart contracts and Chainlink oracles to enable the mining industry to automate various business processes.” 

Through the Community Grants Program, Chainlink continues to empower innovative teams, academics, and social impact projects that research and develop key tools and infrastructure to accelerate the adoption of hybrid smart contracts, secure oracle networks, and cutting-edge technology capable of creating a more economically fair world.

About the Chainlink Grant Program

If you want to learn more about the Chainlink Community Grant Program, check out our recent blog post that further expands upon its goals and the criteria for submission. We encourage talented individual developers and development teams to apply to the grant program here, or if you’re a researcher and want to collaborate, contact us. Chainlink Community Grants are provided in cash and/or LINK.