Hyperledger Fabric

The Brazilian textile industry represents 10% of the nation’s industrial GDP, and it is also the second-largest employer in the country. Despite its importance, fashion is ranked second as the industry with most cases of forced labor or conditions similar to slavery.

As an effort to fight this problem, in recent years, brands and manufacturers in the textile industry have been auditing production sites. Because of the lack of integration between the actors of this production chain, auditings is still very inefficient, as it involves high costs and offers a vast scope of error. 

There are three main problems in the current audit model.

Because workers and auditors have a strictly professional, non-anonymous, and punctual relationship, there is no way to guarantee the veracity of the worker’s account. Moreover, in most cases, only a few workers are interviewed by the auditor, which makes the picture incomplete since it does not reflect the overarching reality of the production process.

Besides the possibility of human error and fraud, the current model has low auditing frequency (once a year), depends on third party institutions, and is very expensive. This scenario translates into inefficiency and generates doubts for the stakeholders since the benefits become unclear.

The third and most critical problem with this type of auditing is the lack of interface between the market and society. Since the whole process, from production to consumption, is not available and transparent for end consumers, key actors do not have adequate information to demand better conditions for workers or to make better consumption choices.

In addition, the fashion industry involves many intermediaries: seamstresses, workshops, factories, suppliers, brands. This amount of people makes it difficult to monitor all business productivity in a clear, integrated, and efficient manner.

Addressing this situation means taking on a number of challenges: How to connect actors in the supply chain, bringing business efficiency, predictability of delivery, and inventory? How to offer visibility to the production processes, and therefore give voice to the last mile of the chain? How to empower seamstresses and improve their working conditions?

To solve these problems and reverse this scenario, Blockforce – a Brazilian blockchain researcher and builder and general member of Hyperledger –  in partnership with C&A Foundation, Instituto E and COPPEAD-UFRJ, developed a blockchain-based solution called Fair Fashion. Designed using the Hyperledger Fabric framework, this solution promotes visibility and accountability in the fashion supply chain, with the goal of improving working conditions and the efficiency of processes in the production chain. 

This is done through the publication of indexes that explain correlations between demographics, working conditions, and stability in the supply chain based on traceability of order matching with a monthly census with workers at the end of the production chain.

The Fair Fashion solution works on three fronts:

Firstly, Fair Fashion offers workers an app to report their work conditions. By answering a monthly questionnaire, the respective workers involved anonymously provide an update on the working conditions behind all orders placed during the month. 

The second tool is an app for the actors on the business side to trace orders status and conditions. The orders placed by brands are captured by suppliers and then by factories, providing visibility to all production processes as well as the accurate and transparent order status for the entire chain.

Finally, a Dashboard that integrates the data obtained by the two sources of Fair Fashion’s apps provides an overview of all available data. On the Dashboard, each stakeholder – brands, suppliers, or workshops – has its customized visualization. 

Chained and dependent, the solution consists of two interfaces, the business interface and the social responsibility interface. Together they offer the cross view of data necessary to establish the interdependence between flows, and therefore accuracy in verifying the exposed indexes.

The business interface integrates the flow between brands, suppliers, and workshops. It allows the organization to monitor the order status – the number of products produced and delivered, current order status, and its immutable history. It may check, in an organized manner, all documentation of the establishment, including whether it is up to date or pending, and, finally, monitor the current situation of employees.

On the other hand, the social responsibility interface is a reflection of the survey answered by workers through the app. It provides the workshop’s evaluation according to the workers’ perspective, considering the following segments: physical space, health, safety, labor relations, and working conditions.

All information in both interfaces can be viewed on the Hyperledger Fabric-powered blockchain.

The Fair Fashion solution provides benefits for all stakeholders in the chain and, ultimately, for the sector in general since it is based on efficiency and social impact. By collecting data with higher frequency, greater accuracy, and less cost, brands have visibility throughout the chain, enabling preventive actions and helping to predict deliverability and storage. Workshops and suppliers monitor their productivity and social indicators and can improve their dialogue with brands and society. Finally, by answering an anonymous and confidential survey about working conditions, workers can report their situations, guarantee job stability, and participate in a consolidated network that gives a voice to their needs and realities, which are not always assisted.

Fair Fashion is a project sector initiative along with C&A Foundation/ Laudes Foundation, E institute and COPPEAD-UFRJ.  It is released in its first version. We’re facing the homologation phase for scale implementation. We are advancing tests on brands and actors that aim for this type of innovation in their chains. 

Let’s change the fashion industry together. Contact us to find out more details about the solution and how to be part of it here: https://blockforce.in/

Cover photo by Kris Atomic on Unsplash

While supplier management has garnered particular attention in recent weeks thanks to COVID-19-related demand surges, manufacturing disruptions and quality concerns, vetting and signing news suppliers has long been a challenge. The whole process is slow, costly, and fraught with risks and errors. It creates friction and delay between buyers and sellers.

Chainyard and IBM Blockchain set out to streamline that process with Trust Your Supplier, a network built on Hyperledger Fabric, an open source enterprise blockchain platform. The solution went live in November, 2019, and is gaining steam quickly as a new model for using blockchain as a trust platform for sharing business information securely and efficiently.

Trust Your Supplier creates a unique “digital passport” for each supplier’s identity on the Hyperledger Fabric blockchain. This ID can be shared with any permissioned buyer on the network to save time validating and onboarding a new supplier. Several third-party verifiers are on the network, including Dun & Bradstreet for business data, EcoVadis for sustainability, and RapidRatings for financial risk. These third parties can provide further audit or verification services to create an even more comprehensive picture of any vendor. As a result, buyers and sellers can save time and money and keep their supply chains humming by accessing a single repository with verified accurate data.

To date, 25 major corporate members from Anheuser-Bush InBev to UPS have joined the network. Members cover many major industries including aerospace, consumer packaged goods, electronics, logistics, pharma, tech, and telecom. All told, the members’ suppliers number in the hundreds of thousands. And they’re all committed to modernizing their procurement with the new system. Initial results show:

• Vendor onboarding cycle time cut from an average of 60 days to 3 days
• For buyers: 50% less cost to verify and maintain a supplier’s information
• For sellers: much faster time to first sale

The Hyperledger team has worked closely with Chainyard and IBM Blockchain on a detailed case study about developing and rolling out this network, from concept to PoC to full production deployment. The case study also offers details on the long-term goals of the network and how it could support other key business processes. 

In 2020, Smart Block Laboratory, a Linux Foundation Silver Member, Hyperledger General Member and business partner of IBM, developed a payment solution based on Hyperledger Fabric that allows banks and users to conduct cross-border transfers in real time with low commissions, use cryptocurrency in settlement operations and instantly exchange Fiat for cryptocurrency. The functionality also includes a social network for investors. The solution is a blockchain infrastructure for digital banking called Cryptoenter.

The challenges to a common digital banking infrastructure

Rapid digitalization of the banking sector and distributed ledger technologies have put forward new requirements for banking services. However, there is still no single digital space between individual banking solutions. There are a number of hurdles:

• Most of the current back office systems are not able to provide complete data describing the client’s activities between digital interactions.
• Most often, banks use digital solutions of third parties, thereby risking losing control over their customers’ data.
• IT infrastructure costs are high.
• Implementing new banking tools and training employees is expensive and difficult for companies.
• There is competition, often encouraged by regulators, between banks and Fintech  companies operating in areas such as private equity management and lending.
• Territorial expansion and attracting new users are both complex and costly.
• Likewise, opening and operating branches is expensive, and those in remote and sparsely populated areas don’t deliver much in the way of profits. 

 Turning to blockchain

We believe that anyone anywhere in the world should have access to quality banking services. Transfers between banks/users should be instant, and the world needs a single payment solution for cryptocurrency and Fiat. To deliver on those ideas, many banks have already started integrating the blockchain and accepting cryptocurrency.

We decided to use Hyperledger Fabric to build a common infrastructure solution. We opted for Fabric for its performance, scalability and trust. The main feature of Hyperledger Fabric is its focus on corporate applications. The platform has been designed to ensure high transaction speed and low cost.

In Cryptoenter, Hyperledger Fabric is used as a distributed database.It processes information quickly regardless of network load. It allows each user to make instant payments for goods and services using cryptocurrency.

Second, Hyperledger Fabric provides a high degree of privacy: due to competition and laws protecting and regulating personal data privacy, organizations dictate the confidentiality of certain data elements, which can be achieved by dividing data into a blockchain. The channels supported in Hyperledger Fabric allow users to transmit data only to the parties that need to use it. In Cryptoenter, Hyperledger Fabric allows users interact with each other both within one bank and within several banks

By using Hyperledger Fabric as the basis of the infrastructure for digital banking, Cryptoenter allows all users of banking services to remain customers of banks, while their data is protected by banking security systems, which increases the level of confidence customers have in our payment service. Therefore banks are validators in the network, acting as guarantors of transactions.

And the use of Hyperledger Fabric made it possible to create a P2P lending mechanism, which allows users to issue loans to each other at favorable interest rates with or without collateral.

Conclusion

Hyperledger Fabric allowed the Smart Block Laboratory team to create a unique infrastructure solution that is relevant for all financial market participants, which will not only bring the level of interaction between participants to a new level, but also create new economic ties.

Most of us can relate to wanting to know where our food comes from – if it is safe to eat, ethically sourced, and whether that commodity harms the environment or is produced in a sustainable way. The topics of food safety, recall, waste management and ethical sourcing are justifiably getting a lot of attention. Consumers are demanding a greater level of transparency and assurance.

What if we could empower consumers with more trusted information at their fingertips so they can directly reward and incentivize small scale suppliers around the world that are committed to following sustainable practices? Imagine a future where more people could fully participate in the growing value of the green economy. With a powerful combination of blockchain, digital identity, payments and Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities, we at Accenture believe this is possible and imperative.  

Leveraging these capabilities, we collaboratively developed a solution built on Hyperledger Fabric that generates a new kind of value for producers. We call this capability circular supply chain. 

Here’s how it works: Let’s imagine a coffee farmer, for example. Using an app on their phone, the producer creates a profile, entering basic details like their name, date of birth, and the name of their coffee farm. At their cooperative, their identity is validated, using multiple security protocols.

The farmer’s identifier is then recorded on the blockchain, which acts as an index with links to all applicable data—including things like their payment details so they can receive tips or add attestation that prove their farm’s inspection history and certification status (organic, etc.). This makes it easy to locate, access and share information without the farmer’s personal data being stored on the blockchain.  

The app on the farmer’s phone is multi-factored and authentication-secured; it allows the farmer to generate their own set of public and private keys seamlessly which the farmer can then use to sign data they send to others. 

The farmer is always in control of their data, determining which information is part of their public profile or what details will be linked to a particular product as it moves through the supply chain. They can also use the app as a management tool to keep track of product registrations, check their tip balance, renew certifications and prepare a harvest for shipment.  

When a shipment is ready and registered, a unique identifier is automatically generated, embedding information about the coffee, the farmer and their farm (like its organic certification), and then scanned, captured, and verified at the point of origin.

Sensors can then be added, and registered, to the product at the cooperative warehouse. These sensors can monitor temperature and humidity within the warehouse to ensure product quality. And if the conditions go out of the optimal range, an alert is generated, prompting the warehouse to take preventative actions before the product quality is compromised. 

These details, and each step the shipment takes along the journey, are scanned, added to the ledger and traceable as it moves across the supply chain—from farmers to processors to grocery store shelves and, finally, to end consumers. Now a simple scan not only tells consumers the story of their sustainably-sourced coffee and the farmers that grew it but empowers them to reward the farmer via a secure tip. 

The benefit is a circular supply chain that goes beyond where it started and creates a closer connection between consumers and small growers. Processors, distributors, wholesalers and retailers can trace product provenance, creating market differentiation for sustainability, food security and quality. The hope is that by aligning incentives through an immersive customer experience that fosters informed purchasing decisions, we can empower an inclusive economy that encourages the actions to mitigate environmental impact and benefit people. 

Accenture has created this capability, but it’s just a start. We invite organizations across industries and the globe to collaborate with us as we collectively build a more sustainable and inclusive world. 

Read our report on circular supply chain and learn how to collaborate with us. You may also be interested in joining the Hyperledger Identity WG or Supply Chain SIG to see how others in this space are approaching this digital transformation.

Cover image via Peakpx

The first two decades of the 21st century have seen enormous challenges on scales never before encountered. Whether a global recession or global pandemic, good information management is an essential tool for decision‐making processes, strategic and operational, at every level. But dramatic changes in news media and the proliferation of misinformation, along with outdated (scientific) research frameworks, are impeding timely use of critical data assets, which are at the center of any effective systemic response. This extends to successful emergency preparedness and response and is as much a human-centric problem as a data-centric one. At heart is this question: how do we share massive quantities of data to coordinate on effective responses to global crises?

Finding good ways to use big-data efficiently for solving real world problems touches almost every industry, from finance to education, and from insurance to supply chain management. With globalized industries now much more reliant on data-driven processes, two pivotal problems have emerged: insufficient infrastructure to securely manage big-data resources, compounded by a “trust gap” in the reliability of that data. In both cases, blockchain and distributed ledger technologies offer meaningful solutions to positively transform information dependent industries, and the ways we collaborate with one another on shared goals.

The exponential growth of fake content and disinformation represents a major trust gap, and points out inherent design issues in the architecture of the Internet that need to be addressed if we wish to safeguard trust and the legitimacy of information resources. Blockchain and distributed ledger technology resolve some of these flaws, offering solutions to security vulnerabilities, privacy issues, and data authenticity. While many blockchain applications tend to center on finance, at Penta Network the focus is using distributed ledgers for data related problems in multi-stakeholder ecosystems. Our goal is to facilitate peer-to-peer and multi-peer collaboration through digital networks based on trusted data.

As a first step towards that goal, we launched a social impact initiative called Trusted Voices in 2018. The Trusted Voices project is based on Hyperledger Fabric and other blockchain technologies to provision a chain of custody for information and media assets. The purpose of the project was to demonstrate authentication of digital content at time of original publication, and subsequent tracking across digital platforms, including social media.  A robust chain of custody enables consumers to track content and trace information assets back to their authors and origins. Content traceability offers a powerful tool to combat the proliferation of inaccurate or unauthorized content, while concurrently protecting the intellectual property rights of the authors. There are broad opportunities for this technology: from flagging and removing fake news and disinformation, to collaborative networks based on shared content. Trusted Voices establishes the possibilities for both, and more. 

As an initial test of Trusted Voices, in 2018 Penta visited one of the Central American migrant caravans sheltering in Tijuana, Mexico. The pilot conducted interviews with refugees and immigration officials, and even filmed the first official interview with the Honduran Ambassador to Mexico from an English language platform. Trusted Voices successfully deployed blockchain technology to provide proof of publication for media content, and then used tracking pixel technology to follow that content across platforms. It also highlighted some key values of using Hyperledger technology, such as verifiable, timestamped event histories. With the success of this trial, Trusted Voices showed how content chain of custody will play an important role in the digital transformation of news media and journalism by enabling consumers to verify for themselves the authenticity of media content. 

Trusted Voices has since expanded, and Penta Network is currently developing related technologies for scientific research. In part, the need comes from academic institutions having delegated citation management primarily to commercial publishers. In response, there is a growing movement for an open publishing model, which seeks to return authorship and citation responsibilities to universities and the public. Blockchain has the capacity to accomplish this, while at the same time fostering innovative models for large-scale collaboration. Without undercutting the commercial interests of publishers, tracking and verifying all inputs to research projects blockchain can safeguard researchers’ individual contributions and facilitate multi-party collaborations. In other words, this approach offers a digital blueprint for crowd-sourcing human collaboration.  

Supporting collaborative work models with blockchain technology has real impact, not just on conducting basic research, but also on the knowledge and products that flow from that research. It offers substantial improvements over current models, where some academic and medical research institutions might hoard their data and results, in order to compete for lucrative grants and patents. Distributed ledger systems can serve as trusted data alternatives to private information silos, inviting pioneering researchers and business innovators into more collaborative efforts to rapidly progress and distribute the benefits of their work. As Covid-19 has shown, microscopic pathogens move much faster than patent law and peer-reviewed research. With blockchain technology comes hope of significantly shortening the time from research to discovery, and from discovery to commercial production. 

Whether facing a global pandemic, climate change, or a worldwide economic recession, 20th century business models that encourage working in seclusion and an atmosphere of competitive winner-takes-all attitudes do not fit with the enormous 21st century challenges we face. Instead, we need to rethink, reinvigorate and re-innovate human collaboration for the new century. 

The Hyperledger ecosystem has an opportunity to play a leading role in creating 21st century models for communication and collaborative work that operate at large scale. By helping to overcome many of the obstacles limiting our ability to work together as global digital citizens, blockchain is shining light on new operating frameworks for peer-to-peer and multi-peer cooperation. Key to their success will be secure, verifiable, and shared information assets. Trust in that information has never been more important, and blockchain empowers all communities to share their trusted voices. 

Cover image taken at a migrant camp in Tijuana, Mexico, December 2018