A certification scheme won't work – data should move through the supply chain as efficiently as the goods themselves
I've spent much of the last 20 years working with international brands and retailers on ways to understand where products come from. How did the everyday things that we buy get here, and from where? It seems a simple enough question and yet for the vast majority of things we buy it is completely unanswerable. The label may say "made in China", but normally that's just where the bits and pieces were put together. So where do the bits come from, and how do we find out?
Why should we care?
The total value chain (the sequence of steps necessary to turn primary products into finished goods) for most products is truly global, providing opportunities but also creating problems. What happens when you want to know that the trees that were used to make the paper you want to buy were legally harvested? Or the minerals used to make that latest electronic device you want are "conflict free"? In both these cases it is no longer just about consumer preference or brand promise: there are laws requiring whoever is selling the products to know the answers, and penalties if they don't
See full Article: http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/manage-supply-chain-certification-data
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