Commodity Ecology: A Virtual Community

Platform for Promoting Responsible Consumption

and Production to Achieve SDG #12
Pravin Pawar
Mark Whitaker
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Department of Technology and Society
State University of New York, Korea
State University of New York, Korea
Songdo, Incheon, South Korea
Songdo, Incheon, South Korea
pravin.pawar@sunykorea.ac.kr
mark.whitaker@sunykorea.ac.kr

Abstract—We live in a society built on three major disruptive
technologies: the Internet, upon which we are increasingly served
by and even ruled by online virtual community platforms, which
are increasingly accessible using handheld mobile devices. A
fourth disruptive technology is coming: blockchain technology
which is beginning to revolutionize the exchange of information
in areas such as cryptocurrency, supply chain management,
healthcare and smart contracts. Owing to these four
technological developments, we now live among real/virtual
‘smart regions’ that on their own are capable of deliberating,
finding, and buying/selling en masse toward their own better
choices in sustainable material choices and better waste handling.
These trends are utilized by the first online blockchain-based
virtual community platform for ‘smart regions’ that facilitates
this global, multi-regional drive toward more democratic,
holistic, and sustainable ecological design in all of our
consumptive choices. Commodity Ecology is a model, rubric, and
checklist for sustainability of 130 material categories, on a virtual
platform for deliberation in over 860 distinct ecoregions
simultaneously. The United Nations Academic Impact Office
called Commodity Ecology a top global initiative for actually
achieving Sustainable Development Goal #12, Responsible
Consumption and Production.
regionally together in real communities on actionable
projects toward greater material sustainability for the short
term much less for the durable cultural long-term. We
propose a novel platform called Commodity Ecology that
organizes sustainability for the long term, regionally across
the world that takes advantage of over 5 billion mobile
phones for cheap ongoing real/virtual deliberation. The early
prototype of the Commodity Ecology platform is available
online at https://comwheeldev.azurewebsites.net/, and we are
working on the extension of this platform to encourage
sustainable market exchanges of products and waste
materials powered by blockchain technology.
Section II explains Commodity Ecology and the concept
of smart ecoregions. Section III provides details about the
Commodity Ecology Mobile Virtual Community (CEMVC)
platform. Section IV discusses how blockchain can be
applied to facilitate sustainable product/material journeys as
envisaged in the platform for the CEMVC. Section V
concludes Commodity Ecology is an ideal example of how to
institutionalize a more democratic, ecological design process.

Keywords — Sustainable Development Goals, Sustainable

Production and Consumption, Commodity Ecology, Blockchain,
Smart Region

I. INTRODUCTION
The seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
were set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015 for
the year 2030. SDGs are the blueprint to achieve a better and
more sustainable future for all. The SDGs are in danger of
falling short of being achieved by lacking a way to integrate
‘people power’ and local business incubation into their
implementation in the long term. The goal #12 of the SDGs
Fig. 1. The homepage of CEMVC platform showing ecoregions of the
is “Responsible Consumption and Production” with one of world (https://comwheeldev.azurewebsites.net/)
the aims to reduce waste generation substantially through
prevention, reduction, recycling and reuse. In this paper, we
describe the Commodity Ecology Mobile Virtual Community II. COMMODITY ECOLOGY AND ECOREGIONS
(CEMVC) platform aimed at promoting responsible Commodity Ecology is an online platform that embraces
production and consumption of 130 material categories over our current media regime very well. The platform is:
860 distinct ecoregions simultaneously.
1. A United Nations-recognized model [2] of
A virtual community is defined as group of people who sustainability comprising a taxonomy of 130 different
gather or interact because of a common interest, problem or categories of materials/technologies to facilitate
task and whose members interact independent of time and innovation toward economically-sound and
space [1]. Owing to the ongoing advances in computing and ecologically-sound development. Some categories are:
communication, for the first time in world history, full textiles, dyes/colorants (murex, cochineal, synthetic
independence of time and space and equitable inclusive chemicals, derived organic coal-based chemicals),
deliberation seems to be in reach via societies saturated with building materials/tool construction, metals, and
wireless mobile devices. Prior to this work, no virtual garbage/garbage disposal;
community existed to bring people together globally and

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 2. Operating in each of our world’s 867 ecoregional
zones. Ecoregions are geographical regions
characterized by unique ecological patterns among soil
type, flora and fauna, and microclimate (see Figure 1).
They are stable rubrics for sustainability unlike
relying on political borders and state capacities; and
3. Available via an online software platform to
implement the SDGs via the network value of over 5
billion mobile phones as of 2019.
A list of these 130 commodity use categories organized
either symbolically as a wheel or as a straight list is available
on the platform [3]. The CEMVC platform merges greater
local business incubation, greater local democratization, and
greater sustainable development. Commodity Ecology
provides three actionable levels that the current United
Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (“SDGs”) lack:
1. Commodity Ecology can implement SDGs in a real
world of disaggregated geography instead of abstract
nations of mutually incompatible interpretations of what
is success in these goals. Instead, Commodity Ecology
has a clear, common rubric of geography. Ecoregions are
currently chosen, integrated into the platform as
ecologically-sound boundaries of deliberation.
2. The second actionable level that Commodity Ecology
has that the SDGs lack is clarity on the actual 130
material categories of material sustainability. This
second clear, common rubric of 130 kinds of
disaggregated materials is integrated into the platform.
Thus across point #1 and #2 so far, Commodity Ecology
allows different regions to learn from each other using
the same common material rubric in a common
geographic rubric. This shared learning toward the goals
is less clear with abstract SDGs goals and different
countries of different interpretations of success in these
goals. Plus, with material categories for goals, it is clear:
you either have good ideas in all categories for material
handing or waste and how you integrate them well with
each other, or it is clear where you fail to do so.
3. The third actionable level that Commodity Ecology has
that the SDGs lack is how to reach disaggregated people
in the billions cheaply and permanently in the long term.
In Commodity Ecology, reaching people for the long
term is integrated via a mobile-accessible online
platform as there are over 5 billion mobile phones rather
evenly distributed in the world in 2019. Mobile phones
have more than 80% penetration in the developing
world, hence mobile access is not suffering from a
digital divide like other communication technologies [4].
III. DETAILS ABOUT CEMVC
The building blocks of CEMVC are shown in Figure 2.
CEMVC provides four types of empowerment support to
community members: instrumental support (trading of
products/wastes within ecoregions; finding business partners
or products), informational support (sharing information
about products/wastes and making equally a useful single
platform for business/industry news about all sustainable
materials in all categories in one place), emotional support
(finding friends and networking with like-minded
individuals whether globally or in particular real ecoregional
areas), and appraisal support (providing recognition for good
This research was supported by the MSIT (Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the ICT Consilience Creative program (IITP-2019-2011-1-00783) supervised by
the IITP (Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation).
ideas that build regional sustainable development). The
existing prototype of CEMVC provides eight services to
empower members as a ‘smart region’:
1. Facilitate discussions on commodities’ sustainability
among people in the same ecoregion and across
different ecological regions for easy comparisons;
2. View, like, share and comment on posts created by
other users in their ecoregion or globally;
3. Create posts within their ecoregion or globally by
selecting one or multiple commodities categories;
4. Cross reference posts across multiple commodity
categories and regions;
5. A search function to filter archived posts by
commodity categories and/or by ecoregions;
6. Enroll members as producers or consumers in a
particular ecoregion with a personal homepage to
advertise and find others; you might call Commodity
Ecology an “Ecological Facebook” on this issue.
7. Enable producers to list their available products and
their useful wastes so other producers and consumers
can see available products and useful wastes in
ecoregions to buy them to minimize polluting the
region’s commons;
8. Provide an ability for producers and consumers to
contact each other and to share products and wastes.
Fig. 2. Building blocks of CEMVC
In addition to above, we propose the following services in
future versions of the CEMVC:
1. Encourage sustainable market exchanges of materials
from producers to consumers (in products) and
between producers (as a ‘waste trading service’ in a
region between producers without polluting the
environment). This aids profitable, sustainable trades
of products and wastes. You might call Commodity
Ecology an “Ecological eBay” for ‘smart regions.’
2. Education via gamification built into the platform to
inspire innovative youth entrepreneurs to contribute
early to a sustainable world in their region and to be
recognized by their peers and adults for their ideas or
comments; and
3. Invent a useful single platform for business/industry
news and trends about all sustainable materials in all
categories in one place.
IV. APPLICATION OF BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY IN CEMVC
Recently, blockchain technology is being considered as
a lucrative option for data management due to compelling
features such as a fault tolerant and distributed ledger,
having a chronological and time-stamped data record that is
irreversible, having auditable and cryptographically-sealed
information blocks, near real-time data updates, consensus-
based transactions, and ability to authorize smart contracts
and policy-based access to facilitate data protection [5].
Compared to existing solutions, blockchain technology
provides the ability to make changes safely and transparently
from an unlimited number of sources that can be
geographically distributed. Moreover, use of blockchain
technology ensures that each participant has the latest ledger
version. This is ensured using consensus algorithms. Thus,
decentralized systems can now solve and remove past
requirements of third-party central monitoring to make a
network of trust, and so confidence in validity of each
transaction in a decentralized arrangement is possible for the
first time in human history. A shared decentralized ledger is
updated with every transaction. It is publicly available and is
incorruptible. Thus, it encourages trust via transparency [6].
In the CEMVC, we envision the application of
blockchain technology to facilitate the sustainable
product/material journey by tracking origin and transfer of
products/wastes purchases and supporting transparent
bidding process. The product/material journey as envisioned
in CEMVC is similar to product/material journey in supply-
chain management where materials, information and
services flow from a producer to a consumer. Figure 3
shows application of blockchain technology in the CEMVC
for facilitating product/waste journey and for enabling
product/waste recommendations by the users.
Fig. 3. Architecture showwing use of blockchain technology in CEMVC
The applications of blockchain technology in supply chain
management are described in many texts. The advantages and
disadvantages of using RFID and blockchain technology in
building the agri-food supply chain traceability system are
discussed in [7]. The system proposed in [7] realizes the
traceability in the entire agri-food supply chain, by gathering,
transferring and sharing authenticated data of agri-food in
production, processing, warehousing, distribution, and selling
links. According to discussion in [8], blockchain is suitable
for financial transactions in which no physical goods change
hands (like in financial instruments, derivatives, and bidding
processes) and for supply chain management assisting
delivery of unadulterated, source-, process- and transit-
verifiable goods and commodities. In supply chain
management, sustainability is defined as a triple-bottom-line
This research was supported by the MSIT (Ministry of Science and ICT), Korea, under the ICT Consilience Creative program (IITP-2019-2011-1-00783) supervised by
the IITP (Institute for Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation).
concept that includes a balance of environmental, social, and
business dimensions when managing the supply chain. There
is an increasing momentum towards building sustainable
solutions using blockchain technology. A recent article [9]
discusses the potential of blockchain technology to contribute
to the sustainability of social, environmental and recycling
supply chains. This article [9] points out the future research
should focus on environmental and social dimensions of
sustainability like the SDGs to evaluate blockchain-based
supply chain effectiveness.
V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, we discussed our ongoing work on the
Commodity Ecology Mobile Virtual Community Platform
(CEMVC) towards realizing Goal #12 of the SDGs,
“Responsible Consumption and Production”. The early
prototype is already available online, and it provides the
abovementioned eight services to empower members to
become a sustainable ‘smart region.’ We work to extend the
existing platform to use blockchain technology for
facilitating the sustainable product/material journey. Sharing
a common future vision is important. The best way to
develop a better future is to invent it. A better future vision is
one of better democratic ecological design in which people,
professions, and industries talk to people they rarely talk to in
their daily life in an ongoing democratic risk assessment with
other producers and consumers in a ‘smart region.’
Therefore, a blockchain-based virtual community like
Commodity Ecology catalyzes a simultaneously real and
virtual intercommunication. Commodity Ecology operating
in every ecoregion of the world as four disruptive
technologies allow every region to be a ‘smart region’ is our
vision of the future. This is a common, sharable vision of the
future already in the mobile phone in the palm of your hand.
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