A pilot run by Circularise and ten partners, including Covestro, has been successfully completed, the companies have announced. The project, which tested the feasibility of using a blockchain system to complement the ISCC Plus certification process, was the first time ten companies from the chemical industry and their various downstream sectors worked together to test whether such a digital system could bridge the inter-company gap in the sustainability certification process across value chains.
The idea behind the pilot was to examine whether Circularise’s blockchain-based digital system could make the auditing required for ISCC certification more efficient. As well the partners sought to strengthen the integrity of certified data.
"Certification will become more digital in the future. It will allow certification schemes to simplify the auditing process of supply chain actors and reduce the risk of mistakes. Companies will have an easier way to show compliance and adhere to auditing rules," said Jan Henke from ISCC.
The participants used a public blockchain that enabled the authentication, accessibility, decentralisation, and encryption of data verifying material flows and related sustainability attributes. ISCC certification of individual operators sites across the value chain guarantees the traceability and verification of data. This requires site-specific audits, certification, and company-specific mass balance calculations to provide reassurance about the sustainable content.
For the purpose of the pilot, the data was uploaded to the Circularise software system to improve mass balance bookkeeping and reporting along the value chain through several companies.
"We are excited to have tested Circularise’s traceability software on ISCC procedures,” said ISCC’s Henke. Using the software will also help to familiarise the value chain with ISCC and mass balance approach.
Mass balancing is an emerging concept, not yet fully understood on the consumer side. The delivery of digital certified information through a simple and compatible system can give downstream partners an easier and more recognised tool to communicate and share sustainability attributes externally, all the way down to the consumer.
Covestro joined the ISCC pilot to understand how they can more efficiently communicate their sustainability information to their downstream partners. The company is committed to becoming fully circular and is striving to become climate neutral by 2035 (scope 1 and 2).
“In the ISCC pilot we have shown now how we can easily attach certifications that can be digitally carried all the way through the value chain from Covestro to our downstream partners and finally to OEMs and beyond," explained John Fox from the Digital R&D area at Covestro. The company is seeing increasing demand from customers and partners for a digital certification system that can validate material sustainability claims via a system like ISCC.