Contributors:
Charlotte Wise
CEO at Flying Fox
International House
45-55 Commercial Street
London, England, E1 6BD, UK
Adrian Sam
COO at Flying Fox
Aaron Petchey
Growth Lead at Flying Fox
Monomita Nandy [1]
Reader in Accounting and Finance
Brunel Business School
Brunel University London
Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH, UK
Blockchain technology provides a decentralised open ledger system that supports recorded transactions. It’s new, and provides a wealth of undiscovered opportunities.
A novel and largely undiscovered use of blockchain technology is conservation. It’s widely agreed that we’re at the beginning of the 6th mass extinction crisis, and the only one in history that’s caused by a single organism – humans.[2] Despite this, there’s a global lack of awareness among the general public, who need to be brought on board in order to drive change. It’s even been said “that so few people are aware of the impending [extinction]crisis is a cause of the crisis itself”.[3]
After exploring different academic research and consulting the sustainability approach followed by businesses of different size, we find that the use of blockchain technology can largely involve the general public in conservation through the “decentralised” system that gives them a sense of responsibility, spreads awareness of the extinction crisis, and encourages actions that contribute positively to ecosystems on a huge scale.
In collaboration with a sustainable blockchain gaming studio based in London, UK, this research proposes that by building a Play, Learn and Earn metaverse game, we can educate users on topics important to the future of humankind, including species extinction, biodiversity etc. However, very often, without any tangible benefit there could be lack of engagement from the society in this social cause. Thus, the gaming studio decided to use cryptocurrency to reward players for learning about endangered animals and interacting positively with virtual ecosystems. Within such immersive metaverse games, users can both passively and actively learn about issues associated with endangered species, and earn cryptocurrency rewards for doing the right thing.
The cryptocurrency rewards are in the form of the metaverse’s governance token, which means players that learn and earn these rewards will be part of a council to vote on key issues within the metaverse. The tokens also have a monetary value, and various use cases within the game, making them valuable to users and an incentive to learn. The idea is not just to help players through monetary rewards, but to help educate them on ways to positively interact with ecosystems and help them help those around them.
In this ongoing research we are aiming to foster a culture where young adults have key education on conservation issues and endangered species and examine how through gaming we can contribute towards animal conservation for a sustainable future. The findings of the research will allow businesses to embed animal conservation in their business model.
Incorporating animal and species extinction by small businesses in their business will support businesses to convert their non-financial activities towards a sustainable financial gain. Equal importance to sustainable aspects along with financial opportunities by businesses will allow the policy makers to achieve some of the sustainable development goals by the deadline set up by the UN.
Note: If you want to know more about the research please contact the corresponding author at
[1] Corresponding author
[2] Kolbert, E. (2014). The Sixth Extinction. An Unnatural History.
[3] Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich and Peter H. Raven (2020)
