Codeocracy: How the EU's Green Deal Creates Systemic Change & Counters Authoritarian Drift
Using distributed networks to build a digital wall says the quiet part out loud
At times, on “What’s hAppening?” we find articles by others that are just SO GOOD, that we feel strongly about sharing them with all of you!
Scott Frankum, the creator of the Holochain application (hApp), Sustafy, has authored this amazing article. He has been busy since last year engaging with NGOs and EU legislators to develop his innovative supply chain tracing hApp previously written about here.
We’re grateful to Scott for agreeing to re-publish the article from his blog - Weave#3, and for the amazing graphics. Enjoy! ☀️
Scott Frankum is a technology developer, creative director, and digital strategist with an MBA who advises MSMEs and boards globally. His passion projects, Weave3 and Sustafy, empower Indian makers to become Digital Product Passport-ready while leveling the playing field between Global South artisans and Global North consumers.
The EU's Green Deal transformed from a climate and circular economy initiative into legislation that uses computer code to assert strategic autonomy, strengthen national security, enforce EU standards, and counter nearby corruption. Systemic change is often promised, seldom delivered. But, if new EU laws work as intended, I think we have to call encoded technology the cause and systemic change the effect. The legislation champions values-based trade through supply chain tracing—which combined with Web3’s transparency—checks authoritarianism. I argue that the EU’s climate legislation—especially the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) is a case study on how distributed networks can drive systemic change. I’m saying that supply chain tracing on distributed networks accelerates sustainability, strengthens democracy, makes human rights visible and reshapes global power.
Understanding Web3 is like explaining how to use a smartphone to someone who's never seen one. But, the ripening of Web3 technology, with its potential for transparent and decentralized systems, is how climate policy became central to the EU's thinking about economy, security, values, and democracy. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, COVID-19 disruptions, a swaggering China and Web3’s readiness catalyzed this shift. The EU responded to the new geopolitical threats with a huge strategic flex that leveraged its economic weight and market power to expand and toughen its climate plan by building a digital wall. Supply chain tracing on distributed networks now addresses climate, counters geopolitical threats, and promotes European values. In other words, supply chain tracing code is how they counter strongmen.
The EU's structural power and the Web3 capabilities embedded in the ESPR are tools for systemic change. Web3 frameworks and associated transparency drive the circular economy transition, enhance sustainability, and counter anything that does not match EU values. The EU's Green Deal strategy of "growth without consumption" addresses climate change by establishing circular systems to capture the economic value wasted in linear systems of take, make, waste. This approach addresses environmental concerns and acknowledges geopolitical implications; recovering and reusing imported minerals weakens the resource monopolies exploited by authoritarian regimes. By decoupling prosperity from raw materials imports and integrating supply chain tracing via distributed networks, the EU establishes circular economies, reduces carbon emissions, and undermines the economic pillars of authoritarianism.
Governance in Code
Web3 technologies are redefining governance. If distributed networks are simply protocols and code, governance becomes whatever communities choose. On-chain tracing systems can create and manage resilient, low-carbon supply chains, enforce sustainability standards, track resource flows and emissions, and maintain product lifecycle databases. The ESPR deploys these innovations, with Web3's smart contracts and distributed ledgers to activate systemic change.
"Agents" are a distinctive feature of Web3's AI and blockchain innovations, enabling dynamic, automated interactions without human intervention. In AI, agents are powerful because they can make final decisions autonomously. In blockchain contexts, agents—in the form of smart contracts—enforce policies and automate processes. Automations are key to achieving change at scale.
These agent-based systems are particularly powerful when applied to supply chains. Supply chain tracing systems are emerging as a new kind of exploitation-free digital institution—decentralized, transparent, and resistant to manipulation. The ESPR provides unprecedented visibility into supply chains, making it increasingly difficult for any actor, autocratic or otherwise, to hide environmental abuses, resource exploitation, or corruption. Transactions and resource transfers become visible and verifiable. Agent-based systems automate compliance, sustainability, and ethical standards. By embedding climate goals and democratic values into transactions, the ESPR creates an economic infrastructure inherently resistant to manipulation and cronyism
The EU's Moral Authority and Global Politics
Over 80% of EU citizens back Green Deal policies as vital to maintaining quality of life. Internal support matters—especially as the U.S. and China fall behind climate commitments. The EU leverages public support to assert cross-border ESPR compliance for suppliers. Put simply, the EU is building a digital wall against products and countries that don’t share their values. I see this as a big plank in the realignment of trade among democracies with democracies and autocracies with autocracies.
Supply chain tracing across the product lifecycle—enabled by distributed networks—creates the circumstances to foster circularity. Tracking products from raw materials to end-of-life upholds environmental and ethical standards, reduces emissions, flexes EU values and prevents authoritarian regimes from exploiting opaque production processes.
Democracy by Design
The EU and US seem headed in different directions on climate and governance. The US Chamber of Commerce is suing the SEC and California over new climate disclosure rules. Project 2025 consolidates executive power and undermines democratic checks and balances. Conversely, the EU's "encoded government" embeds democratic principles, climate objectives, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) directly into trade. Transparency, accountability, and climate remediation are a compelling alternative to authoritarianism and denial masquerading as freedom.
While the EU reinforces both climate goals and democratic values, the U.S. and China prioritize futuristic climate tech over immediate action. The EU’s transparent rules and distributed networks resist regulatory manipulation and autocratic capture. Encoding rules systemically harmonizes enforcement, buffers political shifts and prevents corporate capture of regulators. By making it harder to conceal environmental harm, traceability checks unfair enrichment and power consolidation.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Fourth Industrial Revolution embeds technology and automation everywhere. The Metaverse creates life-like virtual experiences. AI makes the best expertise almost free. Distributed networks like Holochain create public technology infrastructure that enables community-based collaboration, management, and market ecosystems by delivering on promises around people, data, and money. This increases makers' bargaining power, shifts control to the network's edges, and drives systemic change.
Governance in Code is Normalizing
Governance in code is not a new concept. Estonia's X-Road forms the backbone of its popular e-governance system. Switzerland's Zug blockchain-based voting, and Taiwan's vTaiwan platform foster public participation in lawmaking. Blockchain-like capabilities are essential to digital governance at scale. Given the complexity of supply chains, the need for robust compliance mechanisms, and the sheer scale of the EU's €16.7 trillion GDP and €2.5 trillion in imports, the same is true for trade. This shift toward algorithmic governance enables real-time, data-driven compliance systems that function as builders, police, accountants, librarians, and trade negotiators to ensure the Green Deal's success. The EU's model is compelling and the public is likely to love the common sense of it. Authoritarians are likely to hate it
Networks vs Networks
The EU's Green Deal, a climate initiative reconstructed into a digital wall, is a transformative leap in systemic problem-solving. By addressing a global crisis like climate change, we can fortify open societies and activate linked solutions. Encoding policies and operations in distributed networks, the EU creates transparent, accountable economic structures that redefine the balance between environmental sustainability, economic prosperity, and democratic governance via systems that repel bad guys. The EU's Green Deal demonstrates how distributed technologies can drive systemic change by strengthening democracy and open societies while tackling climate change and aligning economic growth within environmental limits.
Anne Applebaum writes that autocracies are now networks of actors. "If you're fighting the dictator of Belarus, that means he's backed by the Russians, and he has business deals with China, and he has support in the United Nations from Cuba. This network that they've created as a group is stronger than any one of them is alone."
Only networks can disrupt networks.
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Sam and Anita have pushed back this event until Q1 2025. Our developer, Sacha, will have more built out on our hApp at that time, giving us an opportunity to feel how it flows, and practice our Requests/Offers!
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🌟 Latest Official News and Events from Holochain and Holo
Application Announcement at TOKEN2049 - VisibleVerification
Mary Camacho and Liz Sweigart, PhD announced a new venture for Holochain at the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) event, hosted and sponsored by EY in Singapore this morning. Visible Verification will put software audits on-chain, making them visible through simple, low-cost methods by combining Holochain and Ethereum. Coming in early 2025, we have been exploring this new venture for months with Visible Verification’s partner and first customer, Least Authority.
Businesses in the crypto world and beyond actively need ways to prove the validity of their software and other assets. Holding the audits of that software in distributed, verifiable ledgers that are themselves publicly auditable? Yep, we think it’s a good idea.
Also, applause to Mary and team Liz squared (Liz Steininger and Liz Sweigart, PhD who came up with this. We love the collaboration and energy that you bring.
Announcement: Volla Quintus Smartphone - Indiegogo Campaign!
Get the new flagship Volla Systeme GmbH Phone Quintus with the Holochain chat app Relay preloaded on it from Indiegogo:
Prefer to pre-order? Secure your device at Volla’s online store:
Plus, enjoy a 10% discount! Use code HOLOCHAIN10 at checkout. The discount will show at the end of checkout!
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For a complete listing of all of the Holo Ltd and Holochain Foundation events go to their ‘Upcoming Events’ page!
🌟Latest News from the Holoverse:
Event: Oasis/HoloNET API test …using Holochain - starting Wednesday, Sept 25th.
We are testing out the new HoloNET API which David Dellams is building, which will be taking game state data from AWS and storing it using Holochain.
The game is called Stellar Gate, which is a Real Time Strategy game set on Mars.
We are actively looking for players to join the multiplayer “Anomaly Series”. Games are at 9 am EST next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, (September 25th, 26th and 27th) and the final one the Friday after (October 4th).
You can register using metamask at soc.stellargate.io and t.me/stellargateio.
Thanks to Thank Arbitrum there are cash (ARB) prizes, as well as bonuses for recruiting people. (We are working with Thank Arbitrum so this is a cross-chain experiment.)
Article: Equinox and Q3, 2024 HummHive Progress Report: Unlocking Mobile Potential and Next Steps
Over the last quarter, we've been working diligently to migrate HummHive from Electron to Tauri as we prepare to implement proper Holochain mobile support using P2P Shipyard. This migration is a significant undertaking because Tauri allows us to create smaller, faster, and more secure applications compared to Electron. The amount of work required has been larger than anticipated because we had invested a considerable amount of time and resources into our original Electron implementation. However, we decided that migrating is the best course of action because we want HummHive to be available to everyone—readers and creators alike—and having mobile support is a crucial piece of our roadmap.
Demo Video: Introduction to Moss from Lightningrod Labs. A frame for growing social fabric in The Weave
A quick demo showing how to use Moss.
Formerly known as "We", Moss is an app that makes it trivially easy for groups to form, and assemble a fit-for-purpose suite of interoperable tooling capacities like chat, spread-sheets, drawing, kanban, etc. Moss relies on an open extensible pattern of using small Holochain hApps to provide these capabilities, and thus demonstrates a fully open peer-to-peer framework for building social fabric.
🌟Other Related News & Events
Publication: The Responsible Tech Guide is here! AllTechIsHuman.org is
…celebrating the release of our Responsible Tech Guide, our flagship publication designed to empower and uplift the Responsible Tech ecosystem! The Responsible Tech Guide features interviews with leading experts from six continents, analysis and mapping of our focus areas (Responsible AI, Trust & Safety, Tech Policy, Cyber & Democracy, Public Interest Technology, and Youth, Tech, and Wellbeing), and key insights about the evolving ecosystem. Download this free resource today!
Article: Framework for Incentivizing Responsible Artificial Intelligence Development and Use - The Center for Human Technology (CHT)
BREAKING: The Center for Humane Technology has released its Framework for Incentivizing Responsible Artificial Intelligence Development and Use, which
Provides a set of principles for lawmakers to utilize when crafting new AI policies
Helps to certify responsible development and use of emerging AI systems
Promotes accountability to individual and business consumers
Ensures that the companies behind these products are prioritizing safety over profit.
A new liability law tailored to these AI systems would allow Congress to set limits regarding the potential harms that require mitigation. Read the full framework to see how.
Article: Why don’t we know our neighbors? from New_Public
Note: We (Anita & Sam) see Holochain as a great solution for building community. Great resources here!
This is where we start this week, with an essay from Friend of New_ Public and Founding Steward of Common Agency, Deborah Tien. Common Agency has spent the last couple of years piloting different iterations of hyperlocal, technology-enabled civic infrastructure that encourages neighbors to connect, imagine, and act together to shape their neighborhoods to feel more like home.
Event: Zebu Live 2024 - October 10-11, 2024 - London, UK
“The highly anticipated Zebu Live, the UK’s largest Web3 conference, is returning 10th-11th October 2024. Organized by Flight3, a renowned Web3 marketing agency owned by Dragons' Den star Steven Bartlett, this year’s event promises to be an unparalleled experience, featuring industry giants like Coinbase, Solana, and Blockchain.com. Attendees can look forward to an inspiring lineup of speakers, including Steven Bartlett, Raoul Pal, Lord Holmes, and John Lilic.
The Holochain Foundation will be a sponsor of Zebu Live - London Web3 Conference, once again!
Also, here’s an article about the conference from CryptoDaily!
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Amazing article, inspiring yet practical to make this systemic change that we so badly need! ❤️