Blockchain technology toward green IoT: Opportunities and challenges

In recent decades, the dramatic increase in global industrial activity has resulted in a significant rise in the use of fossil fuel energy resources, while technological progress has increased the carbon footprint and hence global warming. The significant increase in energy consumption caused by the Internet of Things (IoT) technology has created a new challenge and diverted our focus toward creating a more eco-friendly IoT ecosystem. The green IoT is an emerging field that has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers and industries, as it provides energy efficient services and enables the production and use of renewable energy. Meanwhile, blockchain technology has become a highly adoptable technology in the IoT and is attracting considerable interest from energy supply companies, business start-ups, financial institutions, governments and researchers. This study focuses on the role of the emerging blockchain technology in the green IoT ecosystem, presents the crucial factors that need to be taken into consideration in order to build a green IoT ecosystem, and discusses how blockchain technology contributes to make the IoT ecosystem greener. It also presents the open issues and future research directions to be considered when creating a sustainable green IoT ecosystem using blockchain technology.