Integrating Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) for Sustainable Industry 4.0

Dear Colleagues,

In sustainable industry 4.0 systems, the Internet of Things (IoT) enables real-time data acquisition and operational automation. However, ensuring data integrity, traceability, and trust across distributed industrial environments remains a significant challenge. Integrating blockchain as a trust layer provides cryptographic immutability and verifiable audit trails for IoT-generated data. This integration enhances the security of data processing and supports resilient, accountable workflows in large-scale deployments. While blockchain is employed to strengthen the security of IoT systems, its operation incurs substantial energy consumption and computational overheads. This burden is amplified by the resource constraints of IoT devices, particularly their limited power budgets and processing capacities. Further complicating the situation are the dynamic conditions of industrial environments and the imperative to provide reliable services with minimal environmental impact. Notably, achieving sustainability also requires the adoption of green communication technologies, such as energy-efficient wireless protocols and low-power transmission schemes, which minimize the environmental footprint of data exchange in industrial IoT networks.

To improve the scalability, performance, and robustness of blockchain–IoT integrated systems, critical research efforts are needed in key technical areas, including the following: lightweight blockchain consensus protocols tailored to resource-constrained IoT scenarios; efficient task offloading and edge collaboration strategies with blockchain-based verification; low-overhead privacy-preserving transmission mechanisms for blockchain-mediated data exchange; blockchain-enabled adaptive routing, topology control, and access management that support sustainable networking by reducing redundant transmissions, balancing energy loads, and minimizing network-wide carbon intensity; AI-enhanced architectures for blockchain–IoT convergence; and approaches that integrate green communication infrastructures to enable energy efficient and environmentally sustainable operations. Thus, this Special Issue invites original contributions on, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Lightweight and energy-efficient consensus for resource-constrained industrial IoT.
• Energy-aware task offloading with blockchain-based integrity verification.
• Adaptive orchestration of network resources in dynamic industrial environments.
• Lightweight smart contracts for accountable industrial processes.
• Low-overhead privacy-preserving data exchange for sustainable IoT networks.
• Co-design of blockchain architectures and green wireless protocols.
• AI-driven coordination of trustworthy and energy-efficient workflows.
• Secure and adaptive networking for energy-efficient industrial IoT.

Prof. Dr. Fuhong Lin
Dr. Yueqiang Xu
Guest Editors

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