Provenance: Transparency to the Supply Chain

What is technology if not a way to make humanity accountable for its actions? Blockchain company Provenance answers the call through their mission to help businesses provide irrefutable proof of a transparent supply chain.

Technology’s Role in Safeguarding the Ecology

In a world increasingly plagued by the ills of environmental irresponsibilities, technology is often seen as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, increased production means increased pollution. On the other, technological advancements result in environmentally-friendly production.

Environmentally conscious businesses are on the rise, but so is greenwashing. Greenwashing refers to marketing yourself as a sustainable business for the sake of capturing the market when, in fact, your practices leave much to be desired.

Thanks to blockchain startups like Provenance, technology is at a point where it can aid conscious consumers in their quest to support only ethical companies who walk the talk… and are able to prove it.

Dis/trust the Supply Chain

Eco-conscious shoppers have a hard time. There’s staying away from palm oil, taking a stand against products produced in sweatshops, and ensuring that the ecological footprint from production to market is sustainable.

None of this is easy, not only because it is so much more involved than the typical “Susan went to the market and bought a loaf of bread” process flow that most shoppers are accustomed to. Unfortunately, as much as a company may state environmental goals in its mission statement or list such accolades in its marketing copy, there’s, in fact, no way of knowing. Counterfeits are also a huge market problem resulting in nearly half a trillion dollars worth of losses each year, and manufacturing of these goods are very often the result of sweatshop labor under inhumane working conditions.

In the modern age, we all suffer from a lack of inherent trust in the systems that have been built to sustain and improve our lives. Questioning everyone and everything has become a daily modus operandi that is neither feasible nor conducive to peaceful living. We live in a world where trusting governments and corporations have become the exception rather than the norm.

Provenance’s mission is to use the trustlessness of the blockchain to introduce the principle of trust into our spending habits.

The company is built on the adage:

We enable great businesses to build trust in their goods and supply chain. Provenance-powered data helps shoppers choose your product.

How It Works

Provenance provides transparency between manufacturers, sellers, and buyers. The model is built on providing insights into a business’ supply chain based on the following key principles:

• Transparency
• Verification
• Tracking and tracing

The Provenance platform allows buyers to gain a transparent insight into the people, places, and processes that have contributed to the creation of a particular product. Data verification allows for proven business and supply chain claims. This gives consumers peace of mind that the company they’re buying from walks the talk. Batches or even individual items are given digital passports, enabling buyers to follow a digitally-verified journey from start to finish.

Through this newfound data-driven communication method, customers can rest easy that their shopping habits align with the ethics of their consumption.

Provenance provides sellers with tools to aid relationship-building and drive shopper engagement. Provenance data can be embedded into any online environment, and smart labels provide physical, hands-on interaction with the supply chain process available on the product packaging itself

Shoppers will be able to scan a QR code and have access to a digital walk-through of the supply chain from manufacture to sale, verifying that the claims the product is making are true.

Business Benefits

Building trust and loyalty is business gold. Many companies, though, feel that their stronghold can just as easily be built on a foundation of sand. It just takes one major news story, even if seriously misconstrued, to damage a company’s reputation.

On the other hand, industry exposes can damage even the most ethical business if there’s no method and/or funds to prove that their own practices are above board.

Integrating a blockchain solution, Provenance is able to inject trust, provide authenticity, and foster loyalty. It achieves this by encouraging a collaborative atmosphere between the consumption triage of manufacturer, seller and buyer, by securing data storage, and through providing valuable integration between online and offline touchpoints.

The Shopping Experience of the Future

A survey run by Ingredient Communications shows that up to 73 percent of the 1,300 respondents surveyed across Europe, the US, and Asia, would pay higher prices in exchange for knowledge of an ingredient’s quality and consistency. Of these, 44 percent would pay up to 75 percent more for this knowledge.

Brands all know how important storytelling is to their bottom line. Historically, a good story came as a result of a great copywriter with a solid understanding of Psych 101. Blockchain technology, however, enables a shift of the substance a story is built on. Companies like Provenance enables shoppers to engage with brands in a way that is digitally verified and relies not on bold claims but hard facts.

If this much-needed technology is anything to go by, the future for shoppers is looking good.