World Economic Forum tests blockchain technology for tracking carbon emissions Shipping coal by train at Glencore's Prodeco coal project in Colombia. Credit: Glencore. The World Economic Forum (WEF) has completed the initial stage of a blockchain platform for tracking embedded greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions across the mining industry’s value chain. The WEF’s Mining and Metals Blockchain Initiative (MMBI) released a proof of concept called the Carbon Tracing Platform (COT) to help mining companies trace emissions from mine to final product, the WEF announced in a Dec. 15 press release. Most estimates of the carbon footprint of the mining industry’s value chain are currently based on industry benchmarks or non-standard unverifiable sensors, says Jorgen Sandstrom, WEF’s head of mining and metals.