Major water treatment company joins Web3 to use DAO for maintenance and management of aging water and sewage systems – Dealing with infrastructure crisis together with local residents | CoinDesk JAPAN

Infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and water and sewage systems are aging, and maintenance has become a major issue. Due to labor shortages due to the declining birthrate and aging population, and recent natural disasters, the situation has become known as an “infrastructure crisis,” but the use of Web3, specifically DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization), may be one solution. unknown.

MetaWater, a general engineering company in the water environment field and listed on Tokyo Stock Exchange Prime, has started a project to incorporate DAO into the maintenance and management of water and sewage systems. DAO, which supports the creation of a community for resident participation in maintenance and management, will be provided as a SaaS service in collaboration with Frame0, a blockchain development company that provides the no-code DAO tool “Clubs.”

Simply put, the use of DAO for infrastructure maintenance and management is the use of “external resources.” Yasushi Nakamura, chairman of the company, said at a press conference held on February 19th, “With the progress of remote work during the coronavirus pandemic, work manuals have been developed.By making this available to local residents, they can ask for help with work. It has become possible.”

In 2008, the company announced that it was facing a decline in the number of local government employees involved in infrastructure, private sector participation in public projects, progress in so-called public-private partnerships (PPP/PFI), and large-scale industry reorganization. Started as a joint venture. Sales at the time of establishment were approximately 85 billion yen, and have since grown to nearly 150 billion yen in 15 years. “In an industry that is on the decline, this is an upward growth,'' said Nakamura.

(From Metawater release)

The SaaS service will link Metawater's remote work tools with “Clubs.” Metawater will provide the manuals, workflows, etc. necessary for the work, and will use the DAO functions for communication during work, progress reports, and receiving rewards when work is completed.

For example, a local automobile factory receives a work request through the community, such as “I would like you to repair a water treatment plant meter,'' and repairs are performed while receiving manual and remote support. Currently, there are taxation issues with compensation, so regional coupons and NFTs proving work are expected to be used. If DAO expands, collaboration beyond local governments may be considered.

“Many water treatment plants have cherry blossoms planted.One possible benefit might be preferential allocation of a good spot when the facility is open for cherry blossom viewing events.'' (Mr. Nakamura)

(Yumi Hara, President and CEO of Frame Double O)

On the other hand, Frame 00 was established in 2015. The company has been working on blockchain development since 2018, and Joichi Ito is currently participating as a director. “Clubs” is based on the company's open source developer support tool “DEV Protocol.”

METAWATER initially thought of developing the DAO system in-house, but as they continued their research, they came across Frame 00's “Clubs.''

It is expected that “mass adoption of Web3” will be realized in 2024. However, mass adoption requires the participation of not only Web3 companies but also existing companies. It is said that games will pave the way for mass adoption, and the entry of companies like Metawater involved in infrastructure maintenance has great significance for the Web3 industry.

“Web3 is not just for the financial and IT industries, but is also a tailwind for industries like ours.We believe that implementing (Web3) in society will become important in the future. “There are,” Nakamura said.

｜Text and photography: Takayuki Masuda
｜Top image: Mr. Yasushi Nakamura, Chairman of Metawater