Despite the crypto winter, Polygon, one of the well-known Ethereum scaling platforms, took it upon itself to bring the applicable side of crypto and blockchain technology to people. From social impact to environmental initiatives, Polygon was indeed the platform that touched on most aspects of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) concerns this year.
Social Impacts of Polygon
In October, the police of Firozabad district which is located in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, announced that it will use Polygon in its compliant portal. Police Complaint On Blockchain, the blockchain-based portal, allows users to file their complaints in both English and Hindi without any fees.
Filing a complaint against police officers in India comes with various challenges including long delays, restrictions, manipulation, or censorship. This platform would give millions a free and reliable platform to take their complaints to thanks to the immutability and transparency of blockchain technology brought to the public by Polygon.
Polygon also has plans to impact the Nigerian economy in its partnership with Impact Plus and Adanian Labs which was announced in October this year. The platform plans to address the most pressing issues in the region by providing them with the required resources and support.
In another partnership with Walmart and Flipkart, Polygon is helping the e-commerce giants to build a Blockchain-eCommerce Centre of Excellence (CoE) which will focus on the research and development of Web 3.0 and metaverse commerce applications in India. This goes along with Polygon’s promise to bring Web 3.0 to everyone.
Polygon and NFT Markets
Starbucks Odyssey chose Polygon for the upgraded version of its loyalty program which gives its members access to various Web 3.0 benefits like Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). According to its website:
The experience allows members to participate in a series of entertaining, interactive activities called ‘Journeys’. Once a Journey is complete, members will earn collectible ‘Journey Stamps’ (NFTs) and Odyssey Points that will open access to new benefits and immersive coffee experiences that they cannot get anywhere else.
The Polygon NFT marketplace experienced significant growth this year as well while other NFT marketplaces plunged throughout the year.
Environmental Impacts of Polygon
Green Manifesto is Polygon’s initiative to become a green platform; According to its plan, Polygon will become carbon-negative in 2022, meaning every transaction on the platform, from an NFT mint to trades and transactions, “is accounted for and its environmental impact is offset.”
This is a quite significant step not only for Polygon but the whole crypto ecosystem as the concerns about the negative impacts of some cryptocurrencies are one of the reasons keeping many back from getting exposure to the helpful features of the crypto and blockchain technology.
