Having traced more than 22,500 styles in a consortium project, orchestrated by Fashion for Good, BESTSELLER is continuing its successful collaboration with innovator TextileGenesis’ blockchain tracing solution.
“We believe in the potential of this solution and have just agreed to an upscaled second pilot where we will double the number of supply chain partners – including spinners, weavers and manufacturers – and trace one million styles through a fibre-based approach,” says Camilla Skjønning Jørgensen, BESTSELLER’s Sustainable Materials & Innovation Manager.
The initial Viscose Traceability Project, a consortium project with Fashion for Good partners BESTSELLER and Kering, showed that TextileGenesis’ solution can successfully trace renewable fibres from their source to the final product – an important step towards transparency in the value chain. The success of the TextileGenesis platform and the pilot was measured with regards to three factors; flexibility, interoperability and scalability. The same KPIs will be applied in BESTSELLER’s second pilot, only this time focusing on a new material.
“Having started with viscose, we are now looking into organic cotton as well as the compatibility with BESTSELLER’s existing digital systems – achieving one success at a time,” Camilla says.
BACKBONE OF THE INDUSTRY
Due to the success of the initial pilot, the TextileGenesis platform and solution will be scaled beyond viscose to include other more sustainable fibres such as organic cotton and recycled polyester.
Future pilots will create a roadmap that will leverage TextileGenesis’ partnership with Textile Exchange, whom they are supporting to digitise traceability in their certifications, including recycled polyester, responsible wool or down, and later organic cotton.
“Our vision is to become the industry’s technology backbone where fibre-to-retail supply chain transactions of all sustainable materials can be verified and tracked in a robust, reliable and scalable manner,” says Amit Gautam, CEO and Founder, Textile Genesis.