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ΕλληνικάWhat can a brand do to improve traceability?
Streamlining these processes is certainly a way to facilitate traceability: simplify the materials used, to focus on better overall management of its value chains; favoring vertically integrated suppliers and limiting the number of partners and intermediaries.
The OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) has defined guidelines on how to trace the supply chain according to the requirements of the International Labor Organization. Given that suppliers are scattered across the globe, how does a brand verify that these principles are applied?
There are various platforms, such as the BSCI, Business Social Compliance Initiative, Higg Index, 4 sustainability, which collect data on certain parameters, such as employees, occupational safety measures, expected overtime hours, accidents, etc. of supplier companies. In this case, a brand can choose, for the same service provided, the suppliers that are more responsible towards their workforce.
Strive to trace materials back to their origin, collecting and securing data. The most popular technologies in this regard are blockchain and markers at the heart of the material.
Like a digital passport, blockchain is a centralized and secure digital ledger, presented as impossible to falsify, which allows information to be collected and combined as the product develops. Crystalchain, Trustrace, Textile Genesis™ and others accompany a range of labels, suppliers and operators in their efforts to authenticate transactions.
A more experimental but expanding technique is represented by Applied DNA Science’s molecular markers and FiberTrace’s luminescent nanoparticles, which allow information to be stored in the fibers, through tracers embedded within the material that resist the various treatments and steps in the production process.
A real asset for the leather industry is laser marking, which inserts a code on the surface of the material without altering it, allowing the leather to be traced from the slaughterhouse and during the tanning and finishing processes.