UCO Network Collaborates With VeChain to Develop Blockchain Infrastructure for the Biofuel Industry
UCO Network has announced a long-term partnership with VeChain Foundation to build blockchain infrastructure for the used cooking oil industry.
VeChain Offers Best-in-Class Solutions
The blockchain-based biofuel platform announced the partnership in a press release posted on its Medium page on Friday. In the post, UCO Network stated that the collaboration between the two firms would open up new opportunities within the advanced biofuel space.
UCO Network offers inventory-tracking solutions for the used cooking oil industry, with a strong emphasis on automatic compliance with the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive II.
The platform leverages blockchain technology and the internet of things (IoT) to mitigate the risk of fraud in the European used cooking oil supply chain.
According to the post, UCO settled on VeChain as its blockchain partner after carefully evaluating the capabilities of several other smart contract platforms.
UCO was impressed by VeChain’s meta-transaction features, such as multi-party payment, controllable transaction lifecycle, and multi-task transactions. These features make development on the VeChain platform much more user-friendly compared to other blockchains.
Additionally, UCO felt that VeChain’s open-source tools and turnkey solutions could enable it to develop and integrate blockchain quickly, cheaply, and without the need to start from scratch.
VeChain’s Proof-of-Authority Mechanism Aligned With UCO Network’s ESG Goals
Just as importantly, UCO believed that VeChain’s energy-efficient proof-of-authority (PoA) consensus mechanism sufficiently addressed its concerns regarding energy wastage and inefficient upgrade processes. This point was critical to UCO since the organization strives to adhere to Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards to create enterprise value and promote corporate responsibility.
Blockchain technology is notorious for its high energy consumption and massive carbon footprint. Data from the Bitcoin Energy Consumption Index indicates that Bitcoin (BTC) emits nearly 37 megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. This figure is equivalent to what New Zealand produced in the same period.
By the end of 2021, a single Ethereum (ETH) transaction was emitting approximately 102kg of CO2. It takes 226,000 VISA transactions or 17,000 hours of watching YouTube videos to produce the same amount of CO2.
However, the Ethereum network has since shifted to the much more environmentally-friendly proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism after the much-publicized Merge.
In a world that is becoming more conscious of the staggering environmental impact of blockchain technology and its associated products, such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs, UCO stated that the partnership with VeChain is built on mutual alignment regarding sustainability practices and ESG goals.
Another Feather in VeChain’s Cap
For VeChain, the UCO partnership comes only weeks after it announced an initiative with TruTrace Technologies to use blockchain to ensure the authenticity and provenance of consumer products.
Through the use of an immutable, shared ledger, TruTrace was designed to power the commercial standards of the legal marijuana industry. The platforms will now combine their complementary technologies to enhance the protection of cannabis consumers from counterfeits and contaminants in the weed market.
