Sustainability International

Sustainability International is a U.S.-based nonprofit that provides innovative solutions to complex sustainability and conservation issues in the developing world. Sustainability International empowers communities to alleviate corruption and poverty.

It leverages breakthrough technologies, such as blockchain and virtual reality, to address the world's toughest environmental and economic challenges. SI believes that transparency and economic inclusion will bring the billions of people living in the shadows of society into the forefront.

SI is currently incubating Sela, an enterprise blockchain payments platform that reverses the havoc that systemic corruption has wreaked on the value of hard work and reputation.

Sustainability International's current large-scale initiative hopes to revitalize the region through its Clean Up Niger Delta Project.

How Blockchain Technology is Helping to Clean the Niger River
Ogoniland, situated off the coast of the Gulf of Guinea in southeastern Nigeria, is considered the most polluted region along the Niger Delta and among the worst in the world.

There has never been a cleanup of the oil spills in the Niger Delta, culminating in 50 years of neglect and lack of accountability among oil and gas companies, wealthy elites and the government. Consequently, as sentiment is changing toward solving the problem, all the parties - the government, oil companies and the community - no longer trust each other.

This presented the opportunity to experiment with the blockchain at the community level. "We have their trust, and that is what is most important at the moment," said SI CEO Chinyere Nnadi.

As such, Sustainability International is planning to launch multiple controlled pilots in one village over the next year. Nnadi said they will conduct interviews with the villagers to determine the best design application for the people.

The blockchain aspect of Sustainability International's project creates an added level of trust in the platform.

"The individuals on the ground don't need to trust each other; they just need to trust the platform/system," he said. "It reduces the fear of corruption that can sometimes drive people away from integrity."

Sustainability International and the blockchain coalition will use smart contracts to prevent corruption and return trust back to Ogoniland.

"With smart contracts and cryptocurrency, we can create 'programmable money,' which allows us to then 'program' human actions," added Siegel. "If we incentivize people to continuously perform a series of tasks in order to receive a sustained flow of funds, we might be able to create a system in which the most likely 'corrupt' actors are incentivized for not being corrupt."