In today’s age of information, individuals are increasingly demanding transparency from fashion brands and their primary suppliers. Consumers, today, want to associate with brands that adhere to contemporary ethical and sustainable benchmarks.
This surge in interest among consumers for sustainable clothing is increasing the demand for blockchain apparel solutions that allow brands to communicate traceability and ethical sourcing. While originally blockchain is a fundamental technology supporting cryptocurrencies, it’s crucial to recognize its nearly boundless potential applications. The fashion sector has just commenced its exploration of Blockchain and is gradually recognizing the extensive possibilities it holds for addressing intricate issues within our fashion supply chains.
Blockchain consists of a decentralized digital ledger that is secure and transparent, therefore can provide a single version of the truth for use by multiple parties. Each block of data posted to the secure ledger is authenticated and time stamped and can contain geolocation details. Such verifiable digital information has many potential applications including provenance, traceability, and authenticity, which is needed to implement and enforce our sustainable fashion programs.
Blockchain can also speed up the processing of transactions, help track inventory more accurately, and reduce likelihood of counterfeit products. Research carried out by the AU RFID Lab in 2019 “identified a tremendous amount of errors and inefficiencies with an estimated amount of $181B of business potential by eliminating claims, shrink and counterfeiting.”
More brands are starting to adopt consistent serialized data and are requiring it as part of their product development process. Stakeholders throughout the fashion supply chain are also installing the infrastructure to collect serialized information on products flowing down through all distribution channels. Infor CloudSuite Fashion provides the traceability and serialization within the core system, but there is still a long way to go for the industry to embrace the full capability of Blockchain to increase visibility and better collaboration.
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