Transparency can mean different things to different people, and aspects about transparency too change over time. What did you think of transparency when tex.tracer was launched? Is your understanding about transparency more refined, more streamlined today?
Yes indeed, my understanding has evolved. Transparency is a wide topic. The transparency of my focus is supply chain and product transparency. In fact, we not just work on transparency, but also traceability. The difference between these two? Whereas transparency focuses on mapping the whole supply chain, traceability looks at individual batches of components or purchase orders as they progress through the supply chain.
All traceability issues today seemed to be hinged on supply chains. How do you see these things playing out? Traceability also means that a lot of skeletons can come tumbling out. Therefore, where do you see the maximum resistance coming from?
When we started in 2019, the supply chain partners were not all that eager to cooperate. This is changing though, as more and more suppliers see that transparency is an important factor to futureproof one’s business.
How much are brands/retailers (at one end of the chain) able to enforce traceability mechanisms? Or, do you think this works best when the entire process is written unto law / legislated?
Larger brands and retailers can enforce traceability of their suppliers, but this is harder for smaller players. So, although I value the need for transparency without it being directed by governments—as I know that it can benefit all stakeholders in the supply chain to be able to get supply chain insights—I also know that laws and regulations will create a level-playing field which is beneficial as all actors are then required to comply.
Beyond a point, traceability might not mean much if end-consumers do not care about scanning that QR code to see where their garment came from and what went into producing it. What is your personal experience about how consumer awareness about the subject is changing?
The percentage of consumers interested in product information is small, but growing. Greenwashing is an issue which consumers are no longer accepting—only last month, Decathlon and H&M were fined by the Dutch Authority Consumer Market for unclear sustainability claims. This is why we support brands and retailers to collect product insights from primary source, capture the data in the blockchain and combine this with time and geolocation tagging as well as peer-to-peer reviews. As a result, brands and their consumers can act based on the truth and nothing but the truth.
