The Responsible Sourcing Blockchain Network (RSBN), a blockchain network committed to strengthening human rights and environmental protection in mineral supply chains, announced Wednesday that its digital supply chain for cobalt has moved beyond pilot phase and is progressing toward use in live production computing environments starting in spring 2020.
The pilot succeeded in linking each phase of the supply chain from mine to original equipment manufacturer (OEM), RSBN said in a media statement.
Built on the IBM Blockchain Platform and assured by RCS Global Group, RSBN will have continued participation from founding members including Ford Motor Company, Volkswagen Group, LG Chem and Huayou Cobalt.
RSBN and its participants are building an open, industrywide blockchain platform to trace responsibly produced minerals from source through to end product
RSBN also announced that starting Wednesday,
Volvo Cars will join the network as its newest member with further partners
from the auto, tech and mining sectors expected to join this year.
RSBN and its participants are building an
open, industrywide blockchain platform to trace responsibly produced minerals
from source through to end product, with RCS Global assessing each
participating entity against responsible sourcing requirements set by the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and industry
bodies.
“We are setting in motion a process of mainstreaming responsible sourcing practices across major industries,” said Dr. Nicholas Garrett, CEO of RCS Global Group. “We’ve reached significant new milestones as we’ve moved beyond testing, proving the merits of this coupled technology and assurance model can extend to a wide range of participants across every tier of the supply chain and to other minerals.”
In initial testing, the RSBN blockchain demonstrated
how cobalt produced at Huayou’s industrial mine site in the Democratic Republic
of Congo (DRC) could be traced through the supply chain to LG Chem’s cathode
and battery plant in South Korea, and then to its final destination, a Ford
plant in the United States.
An immutable audit trail captured on the
platform delivered corresponding data providing documentation for the initial
ethical cobalt production, its maintenance and its ethical provenance from mine
to end manufacturer.
The next move is expansion into other
battery metals, including lithium and nickel, the platform is also actively
working to progress the solution to support tracing other common metals
including tin, tantalum, tungsten and gold, also known as 3TG. Further
announcements will be made over the initial pilot consortiums in the additional
raw materials.