WWF Cancels ‘Non-Fungible Animals’ Following Outrage About Climate Impact

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has walked back on its sale of “Non-Fungible Animals” (or NFAs), which were originally meant to raise proceeds for the foundation’s conservation work. 

The sale’s reversal, which took only 48 hours, was made following backlash on blockchain carbon emissions that would result from minting the digital artworks. Many of the fund’s regular supporters even canceled their monthly donations in protest.

Hence, the charity has agreed to end the program, saying it would look further into the environmental impact of the burgeoning market before coming up with similar tokens in the future.

“We recognize that NFTs are a much-debated issue, and we all have lots to learn about this new market, which is why we will now fully assess the impact of this trial and reflect on how we can best continue to innovate to engage our supporters,” WWF UK said. 

The sale had initially featured artwork of 13 of the world’s most engendered animals, with the organization planning to sell the virtual assets on an “eco-friendly” blockchain, as per Climate Change News. 

However, it turns out that the “climate-conscious” blockchain, named Polygon, still runs on Ethereum contracts to carry out its sale. According to Alex de Vries of Digiconomist, this would result in the carbon footprint of the WWF project being 2,100 times more than its estimate. 

Furthermore, as noted by The Conversation, the hype around the sale could drive up the price of Ethereum itself, encouraging more mining of the cryptocurrency, which would no doubt contribute to the overall amount of emissions produced. 

While it may appear as a good thing to environmentalists that the charity shut down the sale, some of the NFT backers who bought into the project aren’t too glad about it being forfeited so suddenly.

“I’m still impressed [at] how they manage[d] to piss off environmentalist[s] and NFT enthusiast[s] at the same one,” said an NFT artist. 

The two-day auction saw 174 artworks fetch a total of US$46,600, with the highest sale going to a virtual image of a Tapanuli orangutan for almost US$2,700. 

Buyers who had purchased the tokens can still claim their rewards, such as free tickets to WWF events, with the proceeds still going towards the charity’s conservation work. 

[via Climate Change News and The Conversation, cover image via ricochet64 / Shutterstock.com]