Sourcery announced the launch of its Impact and Assurance Programme, which offers a groundbreaking solution for primary data collection. The Programme brings unmatched transparency, traceability and trust to the cotton value chain by delivering harmonised regional-specific and third-party verified primary data. In launching this Programme, Sourcery aims to shift the impact paradigm of sustainable cotton by putting the power of data in the hands of growers, grower organisations and manufacturers. It offers a more robust, accurate, secure, equitable, and, therefore, scalable way of collecting verified primary data than anything available today–facilitated through the Sourcery Connect App developed in partnership with Bluenumber®.
This comes at a critical time for the fibre and textile sector as it strives to stay ahead of government regulation and heightened scrutiny around raw materials origin, social and environmental compliance and claims. The Impact and Assurance Programme is an essential part of Sourcery’s Direct-to-Grower™ Programme. It will be rolled out globally over three years in multiple phases to transform trade for good. By applying this Programme, it is possible to strengthen the authenticity of the fibre origin and materials used in products, ensuring compliance with existing and emerging legislations and meeting the demands of growers in a world where climate change and economic volatility are affecting growers and everyone upstream in the supply chain. It facilitates the enhancement of agricultural and financial resilience, ultimately increasing the value of cotton (fibre, yarn, and fabric). This is achieved by recognising and rewarding the commitment of growers and manufacturers to demonstrate their exemplary commercial, social, and environmental performance.
Furthermore, the Programme aims to overcome the existing commercial cost challenges by providing a solution that can generate and renew the financial investments required to drive meaningful and measurable impact at scale within the textile value chain. This is achieved by putting data sovereignty, ownership and rights into the hands of growers, grower organisations and manufacturers. As a result, growers and manufacturers can create commercial value needed to invest in their farms, facilities and people by collecting and selling data to downstream Sourcery Partners or third parties who wish to make claims based on the data collected and verified through the Sourcery Connect App.
“We know how incredibly valuable the data the growers and manufacturers we work with collect is for our industry—its why built a system with data ownership and sovereignty at the as the foundation for delivering more equitable and meaningful impact–ensuring growers and manufacturers are financially rewarded for their efforts.”, said Crispin Argento, Global Managing Director of Sourcery.
The Sourcery Connect App, which is based on the Bluenumber® data system, serves as the digital nexus of the Impact and Assurance Programme. It allows growers, manufactures and brands to work together to deliver maximum impact. The Bluenumber® system offers cutting edge digital identity that protects, stores and ensures proper usage and rights to data, images and documents generated on the farm by our growers and in the supply chain by our manufacturers. It also enables growers and manufacturers to sell data under licence through the Sourcery Bluechip Exchange hosted by Bluenumber®. And it’s free to all growers everywhere.
“We built the Sourcery Connect app to be more than a tool; it is for trusted engagement from growers through traders to manufacturers and brands. Using digital identity and credentials it establishes trust so these actors can interact, communicate, and trade by respecting each other’s data property, data rights, privacy and security” said Puvan J. Selvanathan, Founder and CEO of Bluenumber. Sourcery Connect is the first and only app using self-sovereign identity (SSID) and verifiable credentials to transact both cotton fibre products and the data to prove ESG claims about those products. It equitably enables transparency and traceability from growers through every stage of the supply chain.
The Connect App brings a practical and scalable farm to gin chain-of-custody solution– overcoming a major barrier for preferred fibres with segregated and identity preserved product claim frameworks. The Impact and Assurance Programme marks a significant step towards realising our vision of transforming trade for good and enabling stakeholders to collaborate and invest together in the future of cotton. We aim to build a digital trade and marketplace for cotton and, eventually, other commodities grown by our farmers, to decouple the trade from traditional Wall Street commodity exchanges and derivatives markets like ICE. This will enable more transparent, fair and efficient trade.
Join the Sourcery Impact and Assurance Programme Launch Webinar on April 11, 2024, at either 2 pm IST (9.30 am CET) or 11 am IST (5 pm CET) to gain more information about how the Programme works. You can register for the Introductory Webinar, titled “Get Primary Data that is Accurate, Secure and Equitable”, here: https://www.thesourcery.io/impact-assurance programme/webinar
