Supply Chain Traceability and ESG Certification Platforms

Figures depicting supply chain traceability platform, ESG certification platform, and ESG data lifecycle

Supply chain traceability platform, ESG certification platform, and ESG data lifecycle

Challenge

By sharing upstream data with downstream customers, a supply chain can enhance provenance, regulatory compliance, biosecurity, environmental footprint, ESG claims, brand value, and outbreak response. Conversely, sharing downstream data with upstream suppliers improves efficiency and supply chain resiliency. However, such data sharing involves commercially sensitive attributes like price, volume, composition, and supplier information, leading to a reluctance among data providers despite rising consumer and investor demand for greater transparency.

Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), including blockchain, offers a single source of truth for shared data and processes in supply chains, but its high transparency and immutability raise commercial confidentiality concerns. For instance, a farmer may not want another competing farmer to see how and when they plant seeds, apply agrochemicals, and harvest. Farmers may also worry about their distributors having greater visibility of their process and outputs, affecting prices and contracts.

The USD 14 billion supply chain traceability (projected to reach 9.5 billion by 2032 according to Business Research Insights) and ESG reporting software market (expected to hit 4.34 billion by 2027 according to Verdantix Research) cannot be realised without resolving this transparency and confidentiality conflict.

Solution

Our platforms and technologies, designed to preserve commercial confidentiality, tackle transparency-confidentiality issues in supply chain traceability, provenance, and analytics, as well as ESG reporting, certification, and investment.
Developed by the AAP team in collaboration with other CSIRO teams and leading agriculture and finance industry actors, these solutions are technically robust, backed by our world-leading research in blockchains, digital certification, decentralised identity and access control, machine learning and analytics, responsible AI, and business process compliance, along with several patents. The platforms have been tested through a couple of pilots using real-world data.
Key features include:
  • Data sharing and supply chain analytics that preserve commercial confidentiality
  • ESG metrics and tracking with algorithmic or multi-party claim verification and certification
  • Audit logs and rapid compliance checks for numerous rules with large data volumes
  • Compliance with GS1 EPCIS Standard messages
  • Capability to handle tens to hundreds of supply chain events per second
  • Multi-blockchain/ledger or atomic database-based designs
  • Cloud-native with blockchain-as-a-service support
  • Integration with enterprise information systems
Potential applications of our platforms, technologies, and patents extend beyond algaculture cases and include:
  • Other supply chain scenarios, whether utilising blockchains or not
  • ESG investment and tokenisation, enabling transparent and secure ESG investments
  • Business process compliance, ensuring adherence to regulatory and internal standards across diverse industries

Opportunity

We seek strategic partners aligned with our mission to enhance supply chain traceability, provenance, and ESG goals and investment through accurate data capture, sharing, reporting, and compliance. These efforts will ensure access to local and export markets and attract investment. Partners can scale, productise, and implement our technologies and platforms in real-world applications for supply chain traceability, ESG data and certification, tokenisation, and compliance.

We are interested in licensing and collaborating on further research with software product and service companies catering to agribusinesses, large corporations, agri funds with agricultural assets, and financial services companies. We also welcome large businesses looking to develop their internal proprietary systems. Further, tap into CSIRO’s broader expertise in ESG, Environment, Agriculture, Manufacturing, Generative and Responsible AI, and Compliant and Responsible Tech in realising your supply chain and ESG use cases.

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