Recently, Marubeni Corporation of Japan and a Dutch blockchain service provider Circularise decided to have a unique collaboration. Together, they’re introducing a Traceability Management Platform that aims to track sustainability for a Circular Economy with blockchain technology. The partnership’s goal is to maintain reliability and expand the global supply chain in the chemicals and plastics sector.
Embracing circular economy
The circular economy concept is to eliminate the waste and continual use of resources. From fashion sunglasses to cars by Tesla, recycled raw materials and renewable energy have higher demand in recent years. In fact, providing solutions towards sustainability has become the key strategic investment for most businesses, and having a unified platform is the number one necessity for the stakeholders. This helps businesses directly involve circular value chains to share and use information related to materials while maintaining the privacy of sensitive data.
Over the past few years, operators of chemicals and plastics supply chains looked for a resourceful and sustainable solution to source their raw materials. The reason behind this is the lack of efficient and reliable data-sharing infrastructure.
In this regard, it was essential to raise this issue in the Japanese and Asian markets, and Circularise and Marubeni Corporation took the step forward. Being a blockchain technology scale-up, Circularise can help to function the plastic supply chain with more transparency and feasibility. Meanwhile, Marubeni is a diversified trading conglomerate, meaning that it can reach out to multiple industries. With these resources, they demonstrate the benefits of the joint venture among domestic clients and commercialize the service of Circularise in Japan.
Expanding digital technology
Circularise has already made a good impression in the circular economy. Back in September 2020, they have earned €1.5 million in grant subsidy from the European Commission, making them highly recognized as a solution provider promoting circular economy.
Marubeni’s Senior Operating Officer, the Head of Plastics Business, Terumasa Watanabe also shared that “Circularise’s digital technology has the potential to provide visibility and enable improved decision making when it comes to sustainable raw material sourcing.” The company has been working on developing a resourceful platform ever since they’ve been in the market. The key focus is to enable a tamper-proof audit trail for raw materials and selective data publishing, ensuring confidentiality.
With that, they’ve implemented Smart Questioning technology which facilitates sharing accountable information preserving proof of origin for the brands, OEMs, and manufacturers. The technology also supports the disclosure of environmental indicators like carbon footprints. It is compliant with a company’s Sustainable Development Goal and safeguards the sensitive records of third-party certification for both customers and regulators.
We are glad to announce our new business alliance with Marubeni Corporation.
Together we will introduce #blockchain for #sustainable material sourcing to Japan.
Read more: https://t.co/edYjuLQXTx pic.twitter.com/9itAWOs3Vh
— Circularise (@circularise) February 9, 2021
The positive influence of the partnership
The founder of Circularise, Jordi de Vos, says that the collaboration “will contribute to the realization of a sustainable society and over the years put all supply chain actors in the position to implement circular economy practices at scale.” Marubeni Corporation consolidates subsidiaries using their board business networks both internationally and domestically. Conversely, Circularise supports manufacturers and brands to address sustainable development goals.
The partnership between Marubeni and Circularise will create a positive influence in conducting demonstrations for Marubeni’s domestic clients. This project will scrutinize the materialistic aspect by utilizing both the organization’s services for the betterment of the chemicals and plastics sectors.
Photo credit: The featured image has been provided by Circularise for press usage.
Source: Medium
