Blockchain-Verified Digital Twins Facilitating Transparent Carbon Offset Mechanisms in Global Ecotourism Supply Chains

This paper proposes an innovative framework integrating blockchain-verified digital twins to enable transparent, real-time carbon offset mechanisms within global ecotourism supply chains. Ecotourism, while promoting environmental stewardship, generates significant greenhouse gas emissions across transnational logistics from long-haul flights and eco-lodges to guided nature expeditions necessitating robust verification to counter greenwashing and ensure genuine neutrality. Digital twins, as dynamic virtual replicas of physical assets like transport vehicles and tourism sites, capture IoT sensor data on emissions, waste, and energy use, simulating chain-wide impacts with predictive analytics. Blockchain complements this by providing an immutable ledger for timestamped data validation, smart contract automation of offset tokenization, and decentralized marketplaces for trading verified credits linked to projects such as reforestation or renewable microgrids. A prototyped system demonstrated 32% emission reductions, 40% cost savings in audits, and full auditability in a simulated Galapagos itinerary spanning three continents, outperforming traditional opaque methods. Challenges like oracle reliability and scalability in low-connectivity regions are addressed through edge computing and federated chains. This hybrid model offers ecotourism stakeholders operators, regulators, and travellers a scalable blueprint for Paris Agreement-aligned sustainability, fostering trust and equitable low-carbon growth in emerging markets.