TRICK uses blockchain for product traceability in EU textile industry

The TRICK project, coordinated by Italian luxurious clothing manufacturer Fratelli Piacenza, aims at providing a complete, affordable and standardised platform enabling small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to collect and manage product data as well as access needed services on a dedicated, open business-to-business (B2B) marketplace in the European Union (EU).

The platform will be demonstrated and validated in a pilot programme involving the textile industry.

One of its important features is its ability to cooperate with European Union (EU) customs and other external systems, according to an article posted on the website of the Community Research and Development Information Service, the European Commission’s primary public repository and portal to disseminate information on all EU-funded research projects.

The feasibility of this concept has already been tested on the integration of TRICK with the Integrated Automation Customs Excise (AIDA, the Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency’s information system.

Having access to secure product data that span the entire supply chain will lead to more sustainable practices and introduce circularity models to the industries, the article noted.

TRICK is building the platform based on a blockchain model supporting supply chain traceability, allowing textile markets to overcome issues like product counterfeiting and greenwashing techniques. Such issues have been hindering not only the authenticity but also the availability of product data.

The blockchain infrastructure is provided by Swiss non-profit Quadrans Foundation, a project partner.

Type of services is divided into core and business, while layers cover end-user IT, collection and data management, traceability, security and B2B marketplace. In this way, the new model targets security, transparency, privacy, flexibility, scalability and interoperability.

Source: Fibre2Fashion