Here’s how much CO2 is emitted to ‘mint’ an NFT: Research

Crypto enthusiast have spent millions of dollars to get onto the gold rush, that is Non-fungible-tokens (NFTs). However, the NFT world has a massive impact on the environment.  A new research NFT Club said millions of trees are needed to offset Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions due to NFTs.
“In a time where the world is becoming very worried about the impact of global warming, this seemingly harmless world of online trading is becoming an increasingly big problem,” NFT Club wrote in a blog post.
For the uninitiated, NFTs are digital collectibles that are created or ‘minted’ on a blockchain. To mint an NFT, you need to pay something called as a ‘gas fee’, to make sure that your NFT is added to the blockchain dributed database, so that you gain exclusive right to that particular NFT artwork. Minting an NFT consumes energy. This is because for every NFT transaction to be recorded, crypto mining has to be done. Crypto mining requires specialised computers and devices connected to each other. The whole process emits CO2, which affects the environment ultimately.

How much carbon dioxide do NFTs produce?
The research notes that adding any NFT to a blockchain uses around 83 kg of CO2. This is not it. Once the NFT is mined, the carbon cost of each individual piece of NFT continues. “Every time a bid is submitted for an NFT it costs 23 kg of CO2, every sale of an NFT produces 51 kg of CO2 , and every transfer of an NFT produces 30 kg of CO2.”
According to NFT Club, CryptoKitties NFT collection has till dated emitted 239.83 million Kgs of CO2 , Sorare 20.71 million Kgs of CO2,  Axie Infinity 27 million Kgs of CO2, Art Blocks 23 million Kgs of CO2, and The Sandbox 11.6 million Kgs of CO2. The company has called these collections “the most damaging NFTs to the environment.”
Offsetting CO2
To offset NFT energy consumption, the company says more and more trees have to be planted. It takes atleast 1.37 trees to offset one NFT sale, this would mean the number of trees needed to account for 5 million NFT sales would be 6.85 million. It should be noted atleast 13 million worth of NFTs have been sold till date, according to a data Dune Analytics.
“An average acre of forest can offset the carbon emissions of around 1,764 NFT trades. Adding an NFT to a blockchain produces 83kg of carbon alone, that’s before sale, transfer or secondary sale,” the company noted.

For instance, Snoop Dogg NFT portfolio has 3,683 NFTs, meaning he would need to plant 5,050 trees to account for the environmental impact of his collection. The company estimates that one NFT art’s half a year NFT carbon cost is equivalent to driving a car 838 thousand kilometers, or boiling a kettle 3.5 million times.
Meanwhile, the researchers also created a new calculator that showcases how much impact your NFT portfolio is having on the environment and how many trees would be needed to offset its carbon emissions.