Blockchain-based Traceability Platforms as a Tool for Sustainability

Ant

onio Miguel Rosado da Cruz

1,2 a

and Estrela Ferreira Cruz

1,2 b

Instituto Polit

ecnico de Viana do Castelo, 4900-347, Viana do Castelo, Portugal

Centro ALGORITMI, Escola de Engenharia, Universidade do Minho, Guimar

aes, Portugal

Keywords:

Social Sustainability, Environmental Sustainability, Supply-chain Traceability, Blockchain.

Abstract:

Among the three pillars of sustainability (environmental, social and economic), modern society begins to

give greater attention to the environmental and social ones at the expense of the economic. Consumers are

beginning to be prepared to pay more for products that are socially and environmentally responsible, but, for

taking that decision, they need to be sure that the products they choose are really socially and environmentally

friendly. For that, it is necessary to have transparency about what happens in each stage of the products’

supply chain and this information must be available to the consumer. Thus, it is necessary to know the entire

supply chain, from the creation of raw materials to the arrival of the ﬁnal products at the consumer. Storing

information (where, who, how, when, etc.) on each of the steps of the supply chain is essential, enabling the

traceability of products to become more transparent and even allowing them to be withdrawn from the market

if necessary, for health reasons (for example: use of a toxic paint in a clothes’ factory). This position paper

proposes the use of the blockchain technology to implement traceability in the supply chain.

1 INTRODUCTION

Sustainability can be deﬁned as the way “natural sys-

tems function, remain diverse and produce every-

thing they need for the ecology to remain in balance”

(James, 2015; Krajn

ıkov

a et al., 2019). A sustain-

able development is formed by a set of strategies and

ideas ecologically correct, economically viable, so-

cially just in order to preserve that balance.

Modern society is mainly driven by businesses

and technology. Businesses provide people with jobs,

goods and services, and it is the governments’ job to

deﬁne the rules by which those businesses are bound.

Despite this, some businesses work while neglecting

social or environmental issues. We can ﬁnd several

examples of this neglect in areas such as:

• Fashion: in recent years, and with the appear-

ance of the so-called fast fashion, the fashion in-

dustry has become one of the most polluting in-

dustries. This industry encourages the (unnec-

essary) consumption, increases the carbon foot-

print (more raw materials, more energy spent on

production, more production and transport from

far away sites) and greater waste (more material

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3883-1160

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6426-9939

to recycle or to be treated as waste), many times

with no social neither environmental responsibil-

ity. Most of the fashion brands have moved their

production to developing countries, without wor-

rying about who works in those factories, or under

what conditions. The fashion industry is a source

of exploitation for millions (Sanders et al., 2019),

sometimes using forced and child labor.

• Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries: where re-

sources are over exploited, leading to the reduc-

tion of wood forests, desertiﬁcation of arable land

and endangering some animal species;

• Mining and Mineral Exploration: the resources

needed to sustain our modern society are, many

times, extracted in developing countries with risks

of using underpaid workers or even forced or child

labor and, at the same time, damaging the environ-

ment modifying the landscape, most of the times

with a poor treatment of chemical residues and

contributing to water and soil pollution.

In developed countries, labor laws exist, prohibiting

forced and child labor and protecting workers from

being exploited. These countries also have environ-

mental protection laws, which make possible to pro-

tect the environment. However, a large part of the

industries transferred all or part of their production

330

Rosado da Cruz, A. and Cruz, E.

Blockchain-based Traceability Platforms as a Tool for Sustainability.

DOI: 10.5220/0009463803300337

In Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems (ICEIS 2020) - Volume 2, pages 330-337

ISBN: 978-989-758-423-7

to countries where these laws do not exist (or are not

enforced) and where labor is cheaper. In this way,

the non-exploitation of workers is not guaranteed, nor

the protection of the environment, and in addition, the

products are transported over a much larger number

of kilometers, increasing their carbon footprint.

Some brands (or companies), operating in devel-

oped countries, are concerned with treating their em-

ployees fairly, protecting the environment and being

socially aware, but work with suppliers who do not

have the same concerns. If companies don’t know

who their suppliers are, then they can’t be totally sure

that the workers who make their products are not be-

ing exploited (Sanders et al., 2019).

Ideally, when we buy (or consume) a product we

should be able to know its constitution (raw materi-

als), its origins, if workers are not exploited in any

part of the supply chain, if companies involved in the

supply chain are environmentally friendly, etc. If con-

sumers cannot ﬁnd information about products ‘envi-

ronmental impact and ethically and socially correct-

ness, they cannot include this information in their de-

cisions when they need to decide which product to

buy. For that, it is necessary to know the entire supply

chain of a product, meaning knowing its origins (since

raw materials), how, when, where and in what con-

ditions the product is produced, transformed, trans-

ported and stored.

At the same time, we have sustainable tradi-

tional regional products with Protected Designation

of Origin (PDO) or Protected Geographical Indication

(PGI) whose origins must be assured to avoid forg-

eries (Cruz and da Cruz, 2019).

This position paper defends that, in the name of

sustainability, it is mandatory to know each step in

the supply chain of the products, allowing traceability

as a way to reinforcing transparency.

According to Ciccio et al. (2018) “traceability of

information plays a pivotal role particularly in those

supply chains where multiple parties are involved and

rigorous criteria must be fulﬁlled to lead to a success-

ful outcome” (Di Ciccio et al., 2018).

In the context of a supply chain, blockchain tech-

nology is being seen as one of the technologies that

better ﬁts traceability needs (Di Ciccio et al., 2018).

The blockchain is a distributed technology that allows

for registering and sharing information between those

companies and the ﬁnal consumers.

This position paper defends that, traceability plat-

forms are the key for tracing a set of social and en-

vironmental parameters, promoting sustainability im-

provement. And, public blockchains are the techno-

logical answer for registering this traceability infor-

mation, enabling public scrutiny and helping backing

consumers choices, by allowing them to take informed

decisions on the selection of products with lower car-

bon footprint or products which help improving peo-

ple’s lives, either because they were produced by eth-

ical and fair paying businesses or because they are

based on better long-lasting products with lower car-

bon emissions.

The remainder of the paper is structured as fol-

lows: The next section presents assertions and objec-

tions on the above stated position. Section 3 sum-

marizes the best presented arguments and backs and

further explains the position defended, despite the

strength of some objections. And, after restating the

defended position, concludes the paper.

2 ASSERTIONS AND

OBJECTIONS ON THE STATED

POSITION

In this section we present some arguments for and

against the above stated position.

2.1 On Balancing the 3 Dimensions of

Sustainability

The 1987 report of the World Commission on En-

vironment and Development (WCED), aka Brundt-

land Commission report, deﬁnes sustainable devel-

opment as the “development that meets the needs of

the present without compromising the ability of future

generations to meet their own needs” (Scamans, 2016;

Brundtland, 1987). The report brought into attention

the need of working towards economic development

without exhausting natural resources or harming the

environment.

Although, at the beginning of its emergence, “sus-

tainable development has been interpreted as an eco-

logical vision” (

Ahman, 2013), in recent years it has

become a multifocal agenda involving social, envi-

ronmental and economic aspects, pondering and har-

monizing their conﬂicts (Rasouli and Kumarasuriyar,

2016).

Sustainable development is then based on three

dimensions: social, environmental and economical

(Adams, 2006; Scamans, 2016) (see Fig. 1).

Social sustainability aims at providing future gen-

erations the same or greater access to healthcare, nu-

trition, shelter, and education, in addition to cultural

resources then today’s generation. It is about allowing

the society to function continually at a good level of

social wellbeing. Issues as war, poverty, injustice, and

Blockchain-based Traceability Platforms as a Tool for Sustainability

331

low level of education are signs of a socially unsta-

ble system (Adams, 2006; Basiago, 1999; McKenzie,

2004; Scamans, 2016).

Environmental sustainability aims at supporting a

deﬁned level of environmental quality and keeping

the natural resource capital intact. For this, the con-

sumption of renewable resources should not surpass

the level at which they are renewed. Also, the pro-

duction and management of pollution and waste must

be kept at a sustainable level (Adams, 2006; Basiago,

1999; McKenzie, 2004; Scamans, 2016).

Economic sustainability is about ensuring a com-

pany’s ﬁnancial performance, whilst managing its in-

tangible assets, considering its inﬂuence on the econ-

omy, and how it deals with social and environmental

aspects (Adams, 2006; Scamans, 2016). Economic

sustainability occurs when development is ﬁnancially

feasible, whilst socially and environmentally sustain-

able (Gilbert et al., 1996; Scamans, 2016).

Figure 1: Sustainability overlapping circles (Adapted from

(Adams, 2006; McKenzie, 2004; Scamans, 2016)).

2.2 Traceability Platforms as Promoters

of Sustainability

Louis Roy deﬁnes Traceability as the capacity to ver-

ify the history, location or status of an item by means

of documented identiﬁcation (Roy, 2019). Putting to-

gether the ability to uniquely identifying a product or

product lot, by assigning unique identiﬁers to them,

with traceability, enables an end-to-end visibility over

supply chains. Traceability allows to assess the efﬁ-

ciency of the entire supply chain process with data

management and analytics, right up to the point of

sale, the consumer, and beyond (Roy, 2019). But,

most importantly, traceability allows to track infor-

mation about social and environmental sustainability,

which consumers can use to inform better decisions

(Roy, 2019).

Traceability can be adapted to any industry. Some

sectors, such as the pharmaceutical industry, are even

subject to legislation requiring it (Roy, 2019).

Within all economy sectors, traceability systems

may be applied to create a more sustainable world.

2.2.1 Traceability and Sustainability in the

Fashion Industry

The Fashion industry is responsible for about 10% of

humanity’s carbon emissions (Sanders et al., 2019).

That’s more than all international ﬂights and maritime

shipping combined (McFall-Johnsen, 2019).

The study presented in (Sanders et al., 2019) con-

cludes that, globally, humans are consuming 400%

more new pieces of clothing per year, than we con-

sumed two decades ago. Additionally, about 85% of

all textiles go to waste each year.

The fashion industry is also the second-largest

consumer of water worldwide. Fashion industry also

causes water-pollution problems, being responsible

for 20% of all industrial water pollution worldwide

(McFall-Johnsen, 2019). Textile dyeing is, for in-

stance, the world’s second-largest polluter of water.

Globally, only 12% of companies are monitoring the

wastewater from all wet-processing facilities to en-

sure it is not environmentally hazardous (Sanders

et al., 2019).

Additionally, fast fashion aggravates these prob-

lems by adopting a business model that uses cheap

materials, and many times underpaid labor, to yield

clothing collections at low cost. These creates a pat-

tern where products are manufactured, consumed and

disposed of - literally - fast.

According to McKinsey and Co., consumers are

purchasing 60% more cloths, but keeping each gar-

ment for half as long, when comparing data from

years 2014 and 2000 (McFall-Johnsen, 2019). The

explanation varies between clothes being worn or de-

formed sooner, due to the use of weak materials, or

just because they are out of fashion. Fast fashion

is also based on poor working conditions, child la-

bor and environmental abuse (McFall-Johnsen, 2019).

And, being based on offshoring work to developing

countries, it has created longer supply chains, increas-

ing its carbon footprint. (Scamans, 2016)

Traceability platforms for the fashion industry

have been developed for disparate reasons, ranging

from tracking back products’ process paths or mon-

itoring the quality level from the point of sale back

to the production of raw materials (Gobbi and Massa,

2016; Shen and Li, 2015; Choi and Luo, 2019; Ku-

mar et al., 2017) to monitoring supply chains’ carbon

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emissions and environmental sustainability (Fu et al.,

2018; Caniato et al., 2012).

Traceability systems are thus seen as an efﬁcient

tool for supporting sustainable supply chain manage-

ment in the Fashion industry.

2.2.2 Traceability and Sustainability in the

Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

Authorities, such as the European Union are propos-

ing directives requiring the registering of the origin

of certain products improving product traceability and

faster recalls when necessary.

Traceability systems can effectively trace food

quality, help maintain the population of wild ﬁsh at

sea and manage livestock production in farms and

aquaculture explorations, keep track of usage of wa-

ter, pesticides and the land itself, and reduce food

safety issues. Several examples exist of traceability

systems in this sector. In (Donnelly and PetterOlsen,

2012; da Cruz et al., 2019; Cruz et al., 2019) reports

are made about traceability platforms for registering

and retrieving information about ﬁsh capture, both in

the wild and in aquaculture explorations, and the sub-

sequent transport, processing and sales activities.

All the supply chain events that change the state

of the captured ﬁsh lots, from its capture (or breed-

ing) until a ﬁnal sale of the ﬁsh or a derived product,

are recorded in a traceability platform along the sup-

ply chain, for providing consumers with better prod-

uct information about the ﬁsh they purchase.

Currently about half of the humans-consumed ﬁsh

comes from aquaculture farms. As it happens with

other food products, the traceability of ﬁsh or ﬁsh-

ery products is very important, either to inform the

consumer about the path of the ﬁsh through the value

chain or to recall ﬁsh lots in case of threats to the pub-

lic health (da Cruz et al., 2019; Cruz et al., 2019).

Incidents of food scares, adulteration, fraudulence

and foodborne disease outbreaks have put the con-

sumer more alert about the food they consume (Mon-

tet and Ray, 2018). These incidents have lead some

Food Supply Chain partners to implement a traceabil-

ity system in their supply chains (Haleem et al., 2019)

to help increase the consumer conﬁdence.

In (Haleem et al., 2019) twelve drivers (major fac-

tors) playing a role in the successful implementation

of the traceability system in food supply chains are

identiﬁed. The most inﬂuential identiﬁed driver is the

“food safety and quality” (Haleem et al., 2019).

In (Cruz and da Cruz, 2019), integrated pattern

business-process and domain models for food product

lots traceability in the inter-organizational space in-

side a food value chain are proposed. A supply-chain

wide traceability system allows organizations to ex-

change information about the quality and location of

product lots, from their production and ﬁrst sale until

the sale to the ﬁnal customer.

The implementation of food traceability systems

in big markets, such as China, faces challenges due

to the scale, diversity, and complexity of food supply

chains. In (Duan et al., 2017) critical success factors

speciﬁc to these implementations are identiﬁed.

In (Xiaoshuan et al., 2010), four criteria are pro-

posed to analyze strengths and limitations of the oper-

ating mechanisms of traceability systems in agribusi-

ness. The paper concludes that an integrated mech-

anism is needed to implement traceability system in

agribusiness (Xiaoshuan et al., 2010).

In (Thakur et al., 2009), efforts are made to un-

derstand and improve bulk grain traceability. Food

safety events, such as aﬂatoxin in grains, salmonella

in spinach and tomatoes, and melamine in feed and

food, combined with the slow identiﬁcation of the

suspect products and with demand for high-quality

food and feed products have increased interest in

food traceability systems. Food safety and traceabil-

ity laws exist in several countries, but traceability is

important for several reasons other than just a legal

obligation (Thakur et al., 2009), including efﬁcient re-

sponse to food safety threats, monitoring the chain of

events (production, transportation, sales, etc.), meet-

ing regulatory compliance, analyzing logistics costs

and its carbon footprint, among other reasons.

In (Zhao, 2015) a discussion of the role of trace-

ability systems in improving food safety is put into

place, and legislations and regulatory practices be-

tween EU and China are analyzed.

Agricultural traceability systems have an impor-

tant role to play in improving our food safety. In

(Cheng et al., 2013), an analysis of existing agri-

cultural traceability systems is made, and a common

agricultural traceability method is proposed, describ-

ing the traceability information of different products

with different processes of circulation by quoting the

concepts: traceable resource unit, information gran-

ule, and supply chain, which can be applied to all

agricultural traceability (Cheng et al., 2013).

2.2.3 Traceability and Sustainability in the

Minerals and Mining Sector

Also, in the minerals and mining sector traceability

systems can play an important role towards social and

environmental sustainability, while assuring econom-

ical sustainability.

Western societies are increasingly concerned with

environmental and social sustainability in the supply

Blockchain-based Traceability Platforms as a Tool for Sustainability

333

of (primary) metals (Alvarenga et al., 2019). Environ-

mental sustainability can be managed from different

perspectives, including a site-oriented one (typically

used by the mining sector) and a product-oriented

one (along the product life cycle). In (Alvarenga

et al., 2019) the differences in these perspectives are

analyzed and discussed, supporting the idea that the

metal/mining sector would have potential beneﬁts if

also adopted the product-oriented perspective.

The ability to track and trace products in a produc-

tion process and in the transportation chain from sup-

plier to customers is important for quality control and

process improvements (Bergquist, 2012), improving

economical sustainability. However, when product

lots intermix, it is often difﬁcult to achieve good trace-

ability. In (Bergquist, 2012), guidelines for improving

traceability and setting up a traceability system in the

iron ore production process are presented.

‘Responsible sourcing’ is an important topic in the

mining sector. The expression is used to address sus-

tainability risks in globalized mineral supply chains,

and refers to a wide range of sustainability objectives

pursued by a variety of approaches (van den Brinka

et al., 2019). In (van den Brinka et al., 2019) a re-

view has been performed, on the existing literature

and company policies about ‘responsible sourcing’ of

minerals. The paper develops a framework for re-

sponsible sourcing, deﬁned as “the management of

social, environmental and/or economic sustainability

in the supply chain through production data”. The au-

thors propose the use of the term ‘responsible sourc-

ing’ as an umbrella encompassing all sourcing de-

signed to be ‘socially responsible’, ‘green’ or ‘sus-

tainable’ (van den Brinka et al., 2019).

Hofmann et al. addresses the management of con-

ﬂict minerals in mineral products’ value chains. Con-

ﬂict minerals are those whose exploration and trade

contribute to human right violations in the country

of extraction and surrounding areas (Hofmann et al.,

2018). Supply chain managers in the West are chal-

lenged to take steps to identify and prevent risks asso-

ciated with conﬂict minerals, due to the globally dis-

persed nature of supply chains and the opacity of the

origin of commodities (Hofmann et al., 2018).

2.2.4 Traceability and Sustainability in the

Supply Chain Management

Some of the previously cited references address trace-

ability along the entire products’ supply chain, from

their harvesting, extraction or production and ﬁrst

sale, until the sale to the ﬁnal customer, passing

through the transportation, storage, transformation

and sale of each product or product lot. Bjarne

Bergquist addresses this problem for the iron ore

value chain (Bergquist, 2012). Da Cruz et al. address

the same problem for the ﬁsheries and aquaculture

value chain (Cruz et al., 2019; da Cruz et al., 2019).

And, other examples exist.

In (Saberi et al., 2019), the authors examine how

blockchain technology can overcome potential barri-

ers, such as inter-/intra-organisational, technical, and

external barriers, and then propose future research

directions to overcome such barriers and to adopt

blockchain technology for supply chain management.

Traceability is a demand from customers and other

value chain operators, driven by increasing product

quality demands and customers awareness. In Phar-

maceutical and in Food products value chains, the in-

terest in traceability also includes safety aspects, de-

manding, for instance, the continuous measurement

of products’ transport and storage conditions.

In some value chains, product geographical ori-

gin and location of products is also important, either

because of environmental sustainability issues or be-

cause of origin certiﬁcation reasons.

Sundarakani et al. write on the importance of

green supply chain in modern business environment,

examining the heat ﬂux and carbon wastages across

the supply chain. The paper identiﬁes some of the

heat and carbon inﬂuencing drivers, such as Mode of

Transport, Inventory Policy, Network Structure, etc.,

and proposes a model to measure the carbon footprint

across the supply chain (Sundarakani et al., 2008).

In (Foogooa and Dookhitram, 2014), the authors

present a self-green ICT maturity assessment tool,

which, in their words, is simple, efﬁcient and accessi-

ble. Some business beneﬁts arising from the proposed

green ICT maturity self-assessment tool are also illus-

trated (Foogooa and Dookhitram, 2014).

In (da Cruz et al., 2020), the authors are using

a distributed App based on a smart contract on the

Ethereum blockchain to trace the carbon footprint of

products and organizations.

2.2.5 Traceability and Sustainability in the

Traditional/Regional Products Industry

Traditional products try, most times, to preserve the

origin of production and the manufacturing process,

in order to preserve traditional characteristics such as

quality, ﬂavor, texture, etc. The processes can, how-

ever, be slightly altered to improve hygiene or work-

ing conditions. These products usually are more ex-

pensive, and so they are often subject to forgery.

Products’ traceability is typically related to the

product’s geographical origin and location, and their

transport and storage conditions. While properties

such as temperature of transport or storage have

mainly to do with quality control and food safety,

ICEIS 2020 - 22nd International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

334

other properties such as the geographical origin of

raw materials (e.g. bulk grains, fruit, milk, meat) or

of ﬁnished traditional products (e.g. cheese, smoked

or charcuterie products, traditional wool blankets or

cloaks), may be linked to reasons of certiﬁcation of

origin and certiﬁcation of the production process.

In (Regattieri et al., 2007) a platform is proposed

to support the traceability of the famous Italian cheese

Parmigiano Reggiano from the bovine farm to the ﬁ-

nal consumer. The framework supports the identiﬁca-

tion of the characteristics of the product in its differ-

ent aspects along the value chain: bovine farm, dairy,

seasoning warehouse and packaging factory.

Biswas et al. propose a blockchain-based trace-

ability system for the wine supply chain to record de-

tailed information in order to trace the origin, produc-

tion and purchase history of the wine. The imple-

mented blockchain system incorporates the transac-

tions of all primary entities in the chain (grape grow-

ers, wine producers, bulk distributors, transit cellars,

ﬁllers/packers, ﬁnished goods distributors, whole-

salers, and retailer entities) (Biswas et al., 2017).

2.2.6 Traceability Platforms Should Enable

Public Scrutiny

The lack of transparency and traceability in supply

chains leads to critical issues, some speciﬁc to par-

ticular business sectors. As argued in the previ-

ous sections, products traceability increases the con-

ﬁdence of all stakeholders in the supply chains. Pub-

lic scrutiny of the traceability platforms increases the

conﬁdence of all those involved in the traceability in-

formation captured and registered.

According to Kirsi Niinimaki ﬁnding ethical in-

formation from the consumer point of view is “prob-

lematic”, but the need for that information is strong

(Niinimaki, 2009). Consumers need to be informed

to take better, or more conscious, decisions when it

comes to select a product to buy or consume. Con-

sumers want to know the origin of the products they

are buying or eating, and where, how and in what con-

ditions products are produced, transported and stored

(Cruz and da Cruz, 2019).

2.2.7 Traceability Platforms Are Difﬁcult to Put

into Massive Practice

Traceability platforms need all operators in the supply

chain to be involved in providing true and reliable in-

formation about the origin and conditions of harvest/

production/ manufacture, transport, storage or other.

When implementing a traceability platform, informa-

tion must start to be registered in the beginning of the

chain, and it may take some time to have all informa-

tion about the supply chain collected in the platform.

This must not demote consumers and other involved

stakeholders in demanding full traceability informa-

tion for all products.

2.2.8 Blockchain-based Traceability Platforms

Are Expensive to Operate

Motivated by the advantages of blockchain tech-

nology, including decentralization, transparency, au-

tomation, and immutability characteristics, a growing

number of businesses are thinking of it as the basis

for redeﬁning their existing operational systems (Fu

et al., 2018) and automating their supply chain pro-

cesses.

Blockchain has emerged as a reliable solution that

can enable and ensure secure information sharing

over the network. Blockchain technology is being ap-

plied in multiple ﬁelds including implementing trace-

ability in the supply chain. Agrawal et al. explores

blockchain’s potential in implementing a blockchain-

based traceability system for the textile and cloth-

ing supply chain (Agrawal et al., 2018). Fu et al.

also study an environmentally sustainable solution for

the fashion apparel manufacturing industry, which is

based on the blockchain. Incorporating an Emission

Trading Scheme, the proposed framework exposes

carbon emission to the public and establishes a fea-

ture to reduce the emissions for all key steps of cloth-

ing making (Fu et al., 2018).

Several other examples of blockchain use in trace-

ability platforms could be presented.

Despite their known beneﬁts, blockchains have

also several disadvantages, being their inefﬁciency

the most annoying one. This inefﬁciency is linked to

the protocol used to distribute data and reach consen-

sus between the miners. Since mining is a competitive

task, and there is just one winner in every transaction,

the work of every other miner is wasted. The “proof

of work” protocol (used in the Blockchain) is the most

inefﬁcient one, not only because it is slow to reach

consensus, but also because the competition between

miners wastes a lot of energy. For example, in 2019,

bitcoin consumed approximately 66.7 terawatt-hours

per year, according to the bitcoin energy consumption

tracker at Digiconomist

. This is about the same total

energy consumption of the Czech Republic

There are other forms of consensus protocols

more energy efﬁcient, such as Proof of Stake (PoS),

Proof of Elapsed Time (PoET), Proof of Existence

https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/18/18642645/bitcoin-

energy-price-renewable-china

Blockchain-based Traceability Platforms as a Tool for Sustainability

335

(PoE), Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), Proof of Ac-

tivity (hybrid of proof of work and proof of stake),

among others. But, a public blockchain with an efﬁ-

cient protocol that ensures committing several trans-

action blocks per minute is yet to appear.

3 CONCLUSIONS

Economic development has been traditionally based

in purely ﬁnancial performance of companies and

states, without regarding how those companies and

states deal with social and environmental aspects.

Currently, consumers tend to be more alert to the so-

cial and environmental aspects, forcing companies,

brands and governments to care about those aspects

as well. This is motivating stakeholders from several

economic branches and industries to make their sup-

ply chains more transparent. The report presented in

(Sanders et al., 2019) for the fashion industry, con-

cludes that, since 2013, “there has been 32% increase

in companies who are tracing their inputs suppliers

and 31% increase in companies who are tracing their

raw materials suppliers”. The same study also con-

cludes that, despite these improvements, “traceability

remains a signiﬁcant challenge across the industry”.

This position paper has presented arguments de-

fending that traceability platforms are the key for

tracing social and environmental parameters, besides

the economic ones. And that blockchain technology

is the answer for registering this traceability infor-

mation. Although the arguments for traceability to-

wards sustainability, presented in section 2, are fo-

cused on the Fashion, Food and Forestry, and min-

ing industries, several similar arguments could be ob-

tained from industries such as automotive, technolog-

ical, pharmaceutical, and other industries.

Currently, the global opaque set up of some sup-

ply chains raises challenges when providing trust to

customers and other supply chain operators. It is of-

ten impossible to trace products back to their origins,

disabling the possibility of measuring their social and

environmental impact (Montet and Ray, 2018).

For making transparent supply chains possible,

which enable product traceability from production of

raw materials to selling the ﬁnal product to the ﬁ-

nal consumer, information at each stage of a supply

chain has to be collected, stored and made available

for consultation by the public in general. Thus, con-

sumers will have the possibility to decide according

to their conscience, when selecting and buying their

products. The collected information must serve the

three sustainability dimensions (social, environmen-

tal and economic).

For this purpose, the blockchain technology seems

to be the most suitable. The blockchain technology

offers a reliable solution for traceability platforms,

several of which have been referenced in this paper.

The main blockchain’s drawback is its efﬁciency in

terms of transactions per second. New blockchains

are being developed with efﬁciency in mind (e.g. Car-

dano, Eris), which makes us believe that blockchains

will be in the future of traceability platforms for sus-

tainability.

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