Transparency Through the Supply Chain
The Protocol Consumption Management Solution (PCMS)
The U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol is also the world’s first sustainable cotton fiber program to offer article-level supply chain transparency.
Utilizing blockchain and other digital technologies, the PCMS records consumption of U.S. Cotton within all stages of manufacturing, creating a digital chain of custody that provides brands and retailers with unparalleled visibility into where their products are made. The journey, and all stops along the way, are visualized for brands and retailers in a Traceability Map that shows the names and locations of all participants in the specific products’ production processes.
Unlike other solutions available to the textile and apparel industry today, assurance has been built into the design where the PCMS offers two levels of verifications for every transaction captured in the system. The first verification occurs within the blockchain-enabled inventory ledger system that ensures that production volumes shipped never exceed the volume of available raw materials in any individual company’s system account. The second verification occurs on the commercial invoices and shipping documents that each supplier must upload in support of shipments recorded in the system.
Measurable, verified data: The Trust Protocol is primarily a science-based cotton sustainability program that captures farm-level environmental data in six key sustainability metrics – land use, soil carbon, water management, soil conservation, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. The program-level data is shared with brand and retailer members.
It all starts with minting Protocol Consumption Units: U.S. Cotton is grown and harvested on participating Trust Protocol growers’ farms. As this fiber is ginned, we capture each bale’s unique PBI and gin weight and verify it against a USDA master list for authenticity and non-duplication. Once verified, a digital token, called one Protocol Consumption Unit (PCCU) is minted for each kilogram of Protocol Cotton fiber.
The Protocol Consumption Management Solution (PCMS)
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