I’ve had this article done for a while now, I want to share it with anyone that is unaware of this technology, and its cool to see the impact tech can have on fashion.
As we know one of the main pain points of the fashion industry lies in its supply chain. Supply chains are notorious for their robustness and complexity for independent businesses and more so for conglomerates if a more soul for Industries such as fashion industry. Rethinking or rebuilding a supply chain’s structure can be extremely challenging, although not impossible. A garment can go through many players, internationally, and for these technologies to actually work, honesty, consistency and compromise with the values is needed from everyone. A good example of breaking the impossible in The Organic Cotton Traceability Pilot. This is a joint effort founded in 2018, aiming to increase transparency in the garment industry. Essentially the product works to markers, physical and digital markers, that verify the identity and quality of a raw product, in this case cotton, after its initial stage of processing.
This pilot was divided into two studies, a lab and field study. The lab portion of the studies tested the verification technologies against the standard refining and processing of cotton in the industry and measured which markers were more feasible to use (Bext360, 2020).
The field portion of the study involved using the Bext360 SaaS platform, a blockchain platform that, once making the purchases of the finished cotton, those purchases were digitized and tracked in the platform (Bext360, 2020).
By the end of the project, all transactions contained data by the different tracing technologies and were logged successfully in the blockchain, proving the effectiveness of tracer technology. Also, proving it to be applicable and impactful for fashion brands, who most of the time have insight of this kind up to they Tier 1 suppliers (Bext360, 2020). Afterwards and at the moment, the information usually becomes too complicated to obtain.
Projects like these one add a great value to consumers who seek to know more on the journey and value of their garment. In this case “Organic Cotton promotes healthy soils, healthy ecosystems, healthy people and thriving farming communities and is consequently a key fibre in the sustainability strategies of fashion brands worldwide.” (Fashion for Good, 2022). The pilot helps to widen the landscape of data available to the consumer and it allows them to know which suppliers and manufacturers participated in creating the finished piece.
Before, there was an interactive display presented at the Fashion for Good Museum, one of the key collaborators of this type of initiative. Although the exhibition is over, visiting the museum is still a good option if you’re in the Netherlands. There’s a current exhibition that goes deeply into the importance of cotton, and then you have other really cool exhibitions if you’re a fashion enthusiast.
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