Unilever and SAP partner for blockchain token traceability pilot – Ledger Insights

Earlier this week, Unilever and SAP introduced they had been partnering to pilot the GreenToken by SAP resolution in Unilever’s provide chain. This blockchain-based expertise will permit Unilever to hint its international palm oil assets, ensuring that the origins of this uncooked materials are clear and sustainably verified. Unilever owns manufacturers equivalent to Wall’s ice cream, Magnum, and cleansing merchandise Omo and Consolation.

Prior to now twenty years, palm oil production has more than tripled – because of it being one of the vital frequent uncooked supplies in lots of family items, from cosmetics to detergents to chocolate and biofuel. As demand for affordable palm oil grows, rainforests are burnt, clearing the way in which for extra palm plantations. Palm oil enlargement in international locations equivalent to Malaysia and Indonesia is the main reason behind carbon dioxide emissions, rainforest destruction, and human rights points. 

Additionally, even when palm oil is being responsibly produced, international provide chains can usually co-mingle this product with much less responsibly sourced palm oil, making it tough for firms to assert a sustainable provide chain.

The partnership between GreenToken by SAP and Unilever goals to fight these points. The GreenToken expertise is run an on a Quorum enterprise blockchain, the place digital twin tokens permit actors inside the provide chain, in addition to clients, to see how a lot sustainable materials is of their product. A mass balancing system offers for immutable tracing of the uncooked supplies used from enter to output. On the closing stage of the method, a token is issued for the product, which offers an audit historical past from the blockchain ledger of the product’s origin.

“Unilever is dedicated to attaining a deforestation-free provide chain by 2023, and blockchain expertise has the potential to assist firms, like ours, monitor their provide chains to make sure the commodities we supply respect individuals and the planet,” mentioned Dave Ingram, chief procurement officer, Unilever.

The GreenToken resolution has beforehand been trialed with Mitsubishi Chemical substances, Bosch, and Eastman, to implement traceability and transparency into their provide chains. Outdoors of GreenToken, the SAP blockchain platform has additionally been used to extend productiveness and cut back administrative delays in Coca-Cola’s bottling  manufacturing line.

Implementing blockchain expertise into palm oil manufacturing is changing into more and more frequent, because it offers a number of advantages. In Thailand, blockchain has been explored to extend earnings for farmers by chopping out the intermediary in monetary transactions. Whereas, in Malaysia, the blockchain platform BloomBloc has been trialed to enhance traceability of their palm oil provide chains, which is vital to garner sustainability credit and buyer belief.