WWF Australia Launches Blockchain Solution to Ensure Ethical Sourcing of Food
In an effort to track the environmental and ethical impact of food sources, environmental group World Wildlife Federation (WWF) Australia has joined hands with BCG Digital Ventures (BCGDV) to launch a Blockchain based platform. This move is an effort to minimize the illegal and unethical sourcing of food and other animal products.
The open platform called OpenSC requires the businesses to attach a digital tag (such as an RFID tag) to their product at the original point of production and link these to a blockchain platform. This allows a consumer to scan the product QR codes with a smartphone camera at the endpoint, which takes them to information about where that particular product came from, how it was produced, and how it journeyed along the supply chain. Since information inside blockchain cannot be tampered with, the records regarding the movement of the product and other additional information, such as the temperature of food in storage, can be considered authentic.
“Through OpenSC, businesses and consumers will have a whole new level of transparency about whether the food we eat is contributing to environmental degradation or social injustice such as slavery,” commented Dermot O’Gorman, CEO of WWF-Australia.
OpenSC was first launched at Sydney’s Aria restaurant by Australian chef Matt Moran in an award-winning pilot supported by WWF Australia. One of the first food product to be tracked using the platform was the Patagonian toothfish caught in sub-Antarctic waters by Austral Fisheries. The fish was prepared by chef Moran and sent to thirteen countries around the world. Moran said it’s important for chefs to know the origins of the products they are cooking.
“We have developed technology that can reliably pinpoint the exact location where each Austral Toothfish was caught and then use machine learning to demonstrate that it was caught legally in an MSC-certified sustainable fishery, and in particular that the fish was not caught inside an established marine protected area or in an environmentally sensitive area,” said BCGDV Managing Director and Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum Council, Paul Hunyor.
WWF has been working tirelessly for thirty years in transforming the supply chain transformations to mitigate the environmental impacts of our uncontrolled exploitation of food sources. OpenSC is motivated by a strong belief that what is good for the planet and humanity, should be good for business.
According to the press release, OpenSC-tracked produce will be at the World Economic Forum event in Davos, Switzerland where many world leaders will be present.
