Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/290401 
Year of Publication: 
2024
Series/Report no.: 
ZEW Discussion Papers No. 24-023
Publisher: 
ZEW - Leibniz-Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung, Mannheim
Abstract: 
While many digital technologies provide opportunities for creating business models with an impact on sustainability, some technologies, especially blockchain applications, are often criticized for harming the environment, e.g. due to high energy demand. In our study, we present a novel approach to identify sustainability-focused blockchain companies and relate their level of engagement to location factors and entrepreneurial ecosystem embeddedness. For this, we use a large-scale web scraping approach to analyze the textual content and hyperlink networks of all US companies from their websites. Our results show that blockchain remains a niche technology, with its use communicated by about 0.6% of US companies. However, the proportion of sustainable blockchain firms is significantly higher than in the overall firm population. Additionally, we find that blockchain companies with an intensified focus on sustainability have, at least quantitatively, a more intensive embedding in entrepreneurial ecosystems, while infrastructural and socio-economic location factors hardly play a role.
Subjects: 
sustainability
blockchain
ecosystem
location factors
natural language processing
JEL: 
Q56
R30
L86
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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