Provenance | Case Studies

Tracking sustainability claims through global chains

Can we prove that products are sustainably-sourced and slavery-free? In an international pilot, working with IPNLF and 12 tuna producers, we used Provenance to track fish through the complex Southeast Asian fishing industry for the UK, Japanese and US markets.

Pioneering a new standard for trust in food retail

How can we empower customers all along the supply chain with data they can trust? Provenance partnered with the UK’s largest consumer co-operative The Co-op to track fresh produce, and their product claims, from origin to supermarket.

Increasing transparency in fashion with blockchain

Can tech help boost trust and transparency in the fashion industry? Collaborating with businesses along a UK-based fashion supply chain, we’ve used blockchain to track raw alpaca fleece from farm to finished garment.

Boosting the value of small, independent food brands

How does the Provenance platform benefit small businesses? Enabling producer, shop and shopper to collaborate on product stories and journeys, Provenance demonstrated a new way to increase trust and visibility for independent brands.

Showcasing craftsmanship via smart labels
How can we give shoppers the information they need to chose your product? Provenance presents the journey of material to finished product through interactive labels.

Raising the value of single-origin coffee
How can single-origin coffee producers prove the provenance of their product? We trial location data verification to differentiate between authentic single-origin coffee from mere marketing buzz.

Tracking towards a circular future for cotton
How can tech help cotton producers increase demand for the sustainable, renewable and biodegradable, fabric? We use Provenance to track cotton from origin to finished good and beyond, closing the loop.

Source: Provenance | Case Studies

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From Farm To Finished Garment: Blockchain Is Aiding This Fashion Collection With Transparency | Forbes

Each garment has a unique digital token, enabling Provenance to verify every step of its production and create a digital history of that information including location data, content and timestamps, all of which is presented to consumers via an interface they can access through their item’s QR code or NFC-enabled label (so that it works on both Apple and Android devices).

Another keyword for the blockchain therefore is storytelling. As Drinkwater adds: “Where transparency and sustainability play a part, then there’s really beautiful storytelling to be told. And brands can do that actually fairly easily. For Martine, there was a real desire to show off the craftsmanship and ability [of the partners]. Rather than just presenting the final product, it enables every partner to show off their expertise and their brilliance in a very visual and engaging way. Ordinarily when you look at a finished product you never think about that.”

Source: From Farm To Finished Garment: Blockchain Is Aiding This Fashion Collection With Transparency

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Will Provenance Be the Blockchain’s Break Out Use Case in 2016? – CoinDesk

Much has been said about the blockchain as an ownership layer. But what exactly does that mean?

It means that blockchains represent ownership of an asset in terms of control over the data relating to that asset. In other words, only the current owner can authenticate a transaction that would cause that asset to be transferred to another owner.

This is provenance expressed in protocol form. The word “provenance” is derived from the French “provenir” which means “to come from”, and is used to describe the custodial chronology of an object.

Provenance is one of the backbones of economies, whether it relates to artifacts or real estate. There has always been a need to authenticate that a party actually owns an asset prior to any business dealing involving that asset, to ensure that the asset is “true” rather than stolen or faked.

In the past, trusted third-parties have traditionally played this role.

However, blockchains can streamline this function by serving as the infrastructure for registering and authenticating asset ownership between untrusting parties with common interests.

Source: Will Provenance Be the Blockchain’s Break Out Use Case in 2016? – CoinDesk

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IBM Think Academy: Blockchain, How it works

What is Blockchain? Blockchain is a shared, immutable ledger for recording the history of transactions. It fosters a new generation of transactional applications that establish trust, accountability and transparency—from contracts to deeds to payments.

Frees up capital flows, speeds up processes, lowers transaction costs and most importantly provides security and trust. We believe that Blockchain will do for business what the Internet did for communications.

Source: IBM Blockchain

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Beyond Bitcoin: How Enterprises Can Integrate Blockchain | AppDynamics

Blockchain is already used in a handful of applications including cryptocurrency. This year, as more people set their minds to understanding the technology and finding creative applications, we will see a sharp increase in new use cases in industries as diverse as agriculture, finance, healthcare, energy, and manufacturing.

Click to read more about supply chain, food and beverage and “Limited blockchains”

The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2025, one-tenth of our GDP will have made its way onto the blockchain. For a nascent technology, that’s a bold prediction. But we’re living through a period of technological transformation that moves at unprecedented speeds. If you’re not already thinking about blockchain, you may already be behind.

Source: Beyond Bitcoin: How Enterprises Can Integrate Blockchain into Business [Infographic] | Application Performance Monitoring Blog | AppDynamics


References to what’s also known as Provenance and Private Blockchains

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Don Tapscott: How the blockchain is changing money and business | TED Talk | TED.com


18 minutes and 49 seconds well spent!

What is the blockchain? If you don’t know, you should; if you do, chances are you still need some clarification on how it actually works. Don Tapscott is here to help, demystifying this world-changing, trust-building technology which, he says, represents nothing less than the second generation of the internet and holds the potential to transform money, business, government and society.

Thanks Jeff for the find!

Source: Don Tapscott: How the blockchain is changing money and business | TED Talk

There really is more. just click below…

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Blockchain — What You Need to Know | Harvard Business Review

Invest 23 minutes and listen to this!

Karim Lakhani, Harvard Business School professor and co-founder of the HBS Digital Initiative, discusses blockchain, an online record-keeping technology that many believe will revolutionize commerce. Lakhani breaks down how the technology behind bitcoin works and talks about the industries and companies that could see new growth opportunities or lose business. He also has recommendations for managers: start experimenting with blockchain as soon as possible. Lakhani is the co-author of the article “The Truth

Takeaways
  • Blockchain = Trust
  • Disintermediation = “Bringing the ends of a transaction together” = An exponential level of disruption not seen since the introduction of the World Wide Web in the mid 1990s (IMO)
  • We are in the “dial-up days of Blockchain”

Source: Blockchain — What You Need to Know

(Click Read More to listen to the audio.)

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A blockchain explanation your parents could understand | Jamie Skella | Pulse | LinkedIn

It’s happening in an increasingly frequent manner: “Jamie, explain this blockchain stuff to me. I’ve read a bunch of articles and I’m no wiser.” The problem with most blockchain explainers is that they provide more detail than what matters to most people, using language that is foreign to most people, which winds up leaving people more confused than when they started. Instead, without worrying about being a technically perfect description, here’s an explanation of blockchain your parents could understand…

Source: A blockchain explanation your parents could understand | Jamie Skella | Pulse | LinkedIn

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