New BRE research paper explores how blockchain technology can benefit the built environment industry - BRE Group
New BRE research paper explores how blockchain technology can benefit the built environment industry
Note: This press release is over six months old and the details may have been superseded. Please contact the Press Office for the latest information
A new report from BRE Trust explores opportunities to address challenges in the built environment industry using blockchain technology.
Distributed Ledger Technology (of which blockchain is one application) is a digital record of the economic transactions or changes in the ownership of an asset. The information is shared and continually updated on a network of computers simultaneously, whilst secured through cryptography. This means that while allowing digital information to be distributed, but not copied, a blockchain is both transparent and incorruptible.
The new report, ‘Blockchain - feasibility and opportunity assessment’, draws insights from two workshops run by the BRE Trust in partnership with Constructing Excellence and industry professionals. The issues it covers include:
- the potential for better ‘track and trace’ of products throughout their life cycles, to give a clear picture of where they came from, who supplied them and who installed them,
- the evolution of distributed energy systems to support more localised energy creation and use,
- the use of blockchain technology to help tackle modern slavery and human trafficking by creating more transparency in construction supply chains,
- connected districts and cities with the Internet of Things – blockchain technology offers a distributed system of registers, all of which are connected through a secure validation mechanism.