That’s only around 7% of its total volume, but the figure “will increase steadily in the coming years if this project meets its objectives”.

Senior Project

And of course, it also helps it comply with new regulations being brought in. From 2024, the EU is expected to introduce a requirement for each product to have a digital passport, with information about the product’s environmental sustainability. 

The company said the new traceability solution is a “major step forward” for it and “for the fashion industry in general”.

Alongside a group of key suppliers, the fashion group is currently embarking on the first part of the platform’s implementation phase. The project will require “significant input from the suppliers, who will now have to use TextileGenesis’s new platform. The hope for them is that this becomes an industry-wide tool, equipping them with the capacity to deliver product level-transparency in line with the expected EU legislation”.

Bestseller also said it will “gather feedback from the suppliers and with their input our objective is to create a system that is both workable and scalable for the entire supply chain. If this solution works the way it is intended, it would be a profound step forward in supply chain transparency”.

So how exactly does it work? Well

With all products being made of multiple fibres that go through a spinning, weaving, dyeing and manufacturing process, the systems register and verify transactions between these processes. It “creates a digital twin (‘Fibercoin’) of every kg of branded or certified material at the source and tracks it across the entire textile value chain, thereby eliminating the need for any PDF/paper-based traceability approaches”.

No material can be double or triple-counted, “thus reducing the counterfeiting or fraud risk across the supply chain – enabling a ‘closed loop’ traceability system”.

The system is also “relatively energy efficient” as it doesn’t rely on the large servers that characterise some blockchain technologies such as cryptocurrency-based platforms.