Danish fashion retailer Bestseller will be able to trace a whopping 25 million pieces of garments from raw material to end product this year. After several pilots earlier, Bestseller's project is the outcome of its collaboration with innovator TextileGenesis to trace man-made cellulosic fibres and direct-to-farm cotton throughout its supply chain.
How the Project Works
- TextileGenesis is a web-based cloud solution designed specifically for the fashion industry to trace fibres as they move along the supply chain.
- Traceability is the ability to trace all processes from procurement of raw materials through production, consumption and disposal, and provides data on when, where and who made the product.
- All products are made of multiple fibres that go through a spinning, weaving, dyeing and manufacturing process. TextileGenesis’ systems register and verify transactions between these processes.
- The system creates a digital twin ('Fibercoin') of every kg of branded or certified material at the source and tracks it across the entire textile value chain, thereby eliminating the need for any PDF/paper-based traceability approaches.
- No material can be double or triple-counted, thus reducing the counterfeiting or fraud risk across the supply chain – enabling a 'closed loop' traceability system.
- The system does not rely on large servers (unlike some blockchain technologies such as cryptocurrency-based platforms) and is therefore relatively energy efficient.
What Bestseller Aims to Do
Bestseller will trace the fibres in approximately 25 million pieces of garments from raw material to end product. That represents around 7% of the brand's total volume—a figure that will increase steadily in the coming years if this project meets its objectives.
Together with a group of key suppliers, Bestseller is now embarking on the first part of the platform's implementation phase. The project will require significant input from the suppliers, who will now have to use TextileGenesis’ new platform. The hope for them is that this becomes an industry-wide tool, equipping them with the capacity to deliver product level-transparency in line with the expected EU legislation.
The implementation of TextileGenesis’ technology has demanded a close collaboration with everyone involved working as one global team with on-boarding and training of hundreds of suppliers across more than 10 countries. TextileGenesis expects to roll out their solution to 400-500 suppliers across all tier levels.
The New Context: From 2024, the European Union is expected to introduce a requirement for each product to have a digital passport, which provides information about the product’s environmental sustainability. TextileGenesis’ solution will help Bestseller meet those requirements, marking a major step forward for it as well as the fashion industry in general.
