Blockchain-Based Carbon Credit Verification Systems: Enhancing Transparency in Net-Zero Corporate Commitments

Abstract

The net-zero cut of carbon emissions has become a strategic goal being followed by companies in many countries of the world, although the coherence of carbon credit markets has been undermined owing to over-counting, inconsistent reporting, complexity of verification, and convoluted verification processes. Traditional monitoring and reporting systems are usually not designed to see in real-time, which compromises inter-stakeholder trustworthiness and challenges the effectiveness of the carbon offset programs. The essay explores how the blockchain technology can be applied to improve the integrity of carbon credit verification system. Through decentralized registries, along with smart contracts and tokenisation of carbon credits, blockchain may offer tamper-resistant traceability and automated issuance and automatic retirement of existing credits, in conjunction with supporting the interoperability of disparate registries. The article is an interdisciplinary case study on blockchain-founded climate platforms and a review of corporate net-zero reporting; it provides a conceptual framework that aims at enhancing the accountability in net-zero commitments by blockchain integration. Blockchain implementations have found empirically that verification timelines can be significantly reduced, credit ownership can be transparent and compliance with investor and consumer confidence in corporate sustainability disclosures can be boosted. Due to the acceleration process of the global climate, the paper ends with the identification of the basic implications of policy, the scale-specific issues, and potential mechanisms of mainstream integration of blockchain technology into the system to implement the market of carbon operations.