Industry: A new platform to trace Italian-made fashion products

Tracing through a digital platform the entire journey of an item of clothing, from raw material to end-of-life, with the blockchain, is the objective of the project TRICK [1], which includes ENEA in the implementing consortium, made up of 31 companies, associations, non-profit organizations and research centers from 11 countries. The project, funded by the Horizon 2020 framework programme, is coordinated by Lanificio Fratelli Piacenza Spa and enables fashion companies to collect verified and unchangeable data on the history of products, through the innovative "block chains" technology.

“The application will enable to trace quality of production processes, wholesomeness and circularity of the raw materials used for garment manufacturing, guaranteeing their sustainability” explained Gessica Ciaccio, ENEA researcher of the Laboratory of Cross Technologies For Urban and Industrial Districts. “Blockchain applications – she said – allow an univocal link between goods and their characteristics registered on the platform, where every modification is recorded and different information access levels can be established. The system is designed for an automated exchange of information among company systems, thanks also to an extension of the eBIZ communication standard [2]. The project, currently focused on the traditional textile and technical clothing sector, also foresees its implementation in the agri-food sector to demonstrate its replicability".

Various services will be grafted onto the traceability architecture of the TRICK project: from the Preferential Certifications of Origin of the product, in collaboration with the Customs and Monopolies Agency, to an environmental impact assessment. The blockchain will help guarantee authencity of garments preventing counterfeiting and protecting consumers from the use of dangerous chemicals, also certifying worker protection requirements. These and other services will be made available on a B2B services marketplace.

Among the main focuses of the project is circularity of manufacturing processes, through recovery from the supply chain of the information necessary to ensure a better reuse of the fibers of the products at the end of their lifecycle. "The application will also make it possible to counter façade ecologism, a communication strategy adopted by some companies, which present their activities as environmentally sustainable to capitalize on the growing demand for environmentally sound products. Furthermore, it will restore consumer transparency on the processes of the entire supply and production cycle”, pointed out the researcher.

Specifically, a private blockchain (Hyperledger) and a public one (Quadrans) are planned, with the aim of activating data portability between the two chains. "A key feature to transfer information among the actors of the supply chain and among the different software without losing data reliability, indeed being able to count on a public blockchain that strengthens the reliability of the private one", concluded the researcher.

ENEA participates in the project with two laboratories working on the definition of standards, studies on the traceability and interoperability of systems and assessment of the environmental impact of products from a circular economy perspective. The work is in continuity with the eBIZ initiative and is linked to the project for traceability in transparent and sustainable fashion supply chains promoted by the United Nations Organization for Electronic Commerce (UNECE)[3].