An Enterprise Blockchain Solution for the Forest Stewardship Council
The Project
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is tackling the global issue of overlogging by introducing a certification system that promotes sustainability and ethics in timber supply chains. However, verifying the accuracy of certified companies' materials tracking and trade claims is challenging due to non-standardized, paper-based documentation. To address this, FSC has partnered with Nectar Labs to establish a new system that enhances transparency and proof of legality, sustainability in supply chains.
Objectives and Goals
This system aims to streamline data management, enhance traceability, and ensure compliance across the diverse supply chains within FSC's purview.
The Problem
- The issue of overlogging is a massive global problem, necessitating a multinational strategy that unites companies, their customers, and the indigenous peoples inhabiting forested regions. To tackle this challenge, the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has introduced a certification system that promotes social, environmental, economic sustainability, and ethical practices throughout the timber and forest products supply chains.
- Despite these certifications ensuring legal and sustainable sourcing, a significant hurdle lies in systematically verifying the accuracy of certified companies' materials tracking, trade claims, and the validity of these claims. The existing records and documentation within wood supply chains are non-standardized and primarily paper-based, like invoices and bills of lading. While FSC mandates that companies maintain up-to-date records of their FSC-certified inputs and outputs, there are no defined requirements for essential data standardization and compatibility.
Our Solution
How did we solve our client's needs?
Recognizing the need for transparency, FSC has partnered with Nectar Labs to establish a new system that enhances visibility into certified supply chains, enabling proof of legality, sustainability, and ethics. This responsibility extends to numerous vendors across these certified supply chains. Compliance entails accurate logging and verification of product data, necessitating a system that streamlines this process, ensures data security, enhances traceability, monitors compliance, identifies data irregularities, and facilitates internal audits.
An Enterprise Blockchain solution emerges as a natural alternative to the existing centralized system, addressing the challenges in FSC's certification system comprehensively. This solution should incorporate features like immutable transaction record-keeping, flexible data placement on/off the Blockchain, transaction validation against quality standards, traceability without revealing private data, scalability, and the inclusion of third-party validators, such as indigenous groups.
Nectar is developing a Blockchain-based system utilizing Proof-of-Authority, designed to efficiently compile and securely store FSC supply chain vendor data. Key functionalities include the creation of immutable transaction ledgers, selective encryption and decryption options for data privacy, user-friendly data entry mechanisms, and advanced data storage for complex analysis and automated materials accounting. This system's scalability and adaptability will enable it to accommodate multiple supply chains and accommodate future enhancements.
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Research
Nectar worked closely with FSC and stakeholders to understand what features would suit their needs.
- Data sharing feature
- Batch processing
- Transaction logging
- Onboarding vendors
- Notification of changes in certification status among partners
- Product ledger
Design
Develop a comprehensive plan for how the end architecture would address all the needs identified from stakeholder interviews and ensure that the end user has a seamless experience using the product.
Timeline
Stakeholder Interviews: 1 Month
Building & Testing: 6 Months
- Figma
- FlutterFlow
- Kaleido running Quorum for Blockchain backend
Deployment: Ongoing
Applications
For businesses seeking heightened security, robust data tracking, and adaptability, enterprise blockchain solutions can be highly efficient. Within healthcare, finance, and cybersecurity, blockchain technology presents diverse opportunities for secure data sharing and streamlined operations.
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