The British Museum may have emitted enough carbon to power an average home in the US for at least 57 years since launching its NFT project in September 2021.
Art historian Bendor Grosvenor has been exploring the carbon cost of the British Museum’s sales of NFTs, and has shared his findings in an article for The Art Newspaper.
In 2021, researchers at Cambridge University estimated Bitcoin’s annual energy consumption to be more than that of Argentina. Combined, Ethereum and Bitcoin consume almost as much energy per annum as the UK.
Ethereum announced in May 2021 that its energy usage would decrease by 99.95 percent with a move to a proof of stake algorithm. However, the transition is yet to take place.
“Since the project began last September, the British Museum’s exclusive NFT partner, LaCollection, has listed 2,105 NFTs on the OpenSea platform,” Grosvenor wrote.
“Minting and selling NFTs is carbon-intensive”
“Minting and selling NFTs is carbon-intensive because the blockchain on which they’re traded requires high energy use.”
“The Digiconomist website estimates that each transaction uses enough electricity to power the average US home for around nine days, producing 150kg of CO2,” Grosvenor said.
“So just for the British Museum’s NFTs already offered for sale, we get a starting carbon cost of 315 tonnes of CO2 – enough to power that US home for 57 years.”
LaCollection says it will plant a tree for each minted NFT. However, Grosvenor said “one tree per NFT is not nearly enough”. LaCollection also said it is “proactively looking at the most sustainable ways to mint NFTs” but are currently using Ethereum.
Find out about green NFTs at greenloop
greenloop, blooloop’s conference on sustainability in visitor attractions on 19-20 April, will be looking at how to create a green NFT.
Alistair Hudson, Director of the Whitworth and Manchester Art Gallery will be talking about the Ancient of Days NFT that they have created with Vastari Labs. This trailblazing project uses Tezos, an energy efficient proof-of-stake algorithm blockchain.
As well as looking at the sustainability of new digital revenue opportunities we will also have Chris Michaels, Director of Digital, Communications and Technology at the National Gallery in London, talking about the environmental impact of other new museum technologies.
Early bird ticket rates end at midnight on 14 April. Don’t miss out. Book now and celebrate Earth Week at greenloop.
blooloop is supporting Earth Day’s tree planting Canopy Project by donating £1 for each ticket sold, and will also give at least 5 percent of greenloop ticketing revenue to Project Seagrass.
Images: British Museum
