Abstract:
Accurate data about the carbon emissions generated by specific products and services is a prerequisite for economic interventions to reduce those emissions, such as carbon taxes. At present, accuracy can only be ensured through manual audits, which are prohibitively expensive, and unaudited emissions figures are susceptible to cheating and greenwashing. This talk presents our in-progress research on using cryptographic zero-knowledge proofs to allow a company to prove to its customers that it has accurately reported the emissions resulting from its products and services, without disclosing commercially sensitive business information, and without depending on costly manual audits.
Bio:
Martin Kleppmann is an Associate Professor at the University of Cambridge, working on decentralised systems, local-first collaboration software, and cryptographic protocols. Previously he was a Silicon Valley software engineer and entrepreneur, cofounding and selling two startups and working on large-scale data infrastructure at LinkedIn. He is the author of the best-selling O’Reilly book Designing Data-Intensive Applications.
Link to join virtually: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/85740137235
This talk is being recorded. Any questions asked will also be included in the recording. The recording will be made available on the Department’s webpage
