TREXCARE UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
TREXCARE
Providing the ReCarbonX system, a blockchain based solution for value chain tracking, food safety and compliance, proof of ecological footprint of products and sustainability tracking across complex value chains to support end consumers, government and authorities.
ID: 706751136373-26
Lobbying Activity
Response to Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
6 Mar 2020
Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism
Carbon leakage is a very important issue; we have already seen a move of energy intensive and GHG emissions intensive technologies to the regions with less strict control of emissions.
One of the existing ways to acquire information about product carbon footprint is to perform long, costly and man-hours-intensive life-cycle analysis, which involves third-party verification and confirmation of calculations, which are then used as product industry averages numbers.
Another approach is self-imposed producer sustainability reporting, which requires trust that reporting was done correctly. Usually the trust question is also solved through third-party verification, which can be very expensive for producers and is often only affordable for big corporations, which diminishes the concept of free competitiveness and makes SME uncompetitive.
There are blockchain based solutions appearing at the market as digital alternatives for materials verification and products flow traceability. These can currently only solve the question of materials origin and supply chain traceability but the first startups are adding carbon footprint tracking along the entire value chain of products.
The solution for fair carbon traceability and carbon border needs to include the possibility of tracing the eco-footprint of each product per each producer, and not rely on a generic “industry average”.
Even in countries where carbon regulation is not imposed, there are producers who are installing renewable energy sourcing, using fuels with low carbon footprint, etc.
As an example: there could be two almost identical old steel plants in a country outside the EU, where Plant A is investing in renewable energy generation, CCU, low emissions trucks, and Plant B continues with old-style production. If an EU carbon border mechanism uses an average generic number for the carbon footprint of steel from this country, this will completely disadvantage eco-friendly investments. Forcing such producers to hire third-party verification can lead to unnecessary expenses and products price increase.
The solution comes through a blockchain based system that can automatically collect all necessary real-time production information through integrated industrial sensors installed at production site and with complete audit proof documentation of all transactions along sourcing, production and logistics including the respective CO2 or GHG footprint.
Only the automatic traceability of ‘carbon footprint per product’ can solve the issue without adding a new layer of costly and often unreliable auditing processes. An example and more details how such blockchain based carbon tracking system could work is discussed at www.ReCarbonX.com
Read full responseResponse to Farm to Fork Strategy
23 Feb 2020
In tackling Part B’s first two aims (Ensure sustainable primary production; Stimulate sustainable food processing, retail, hospitality and food services’ practices): tracking systems built on blockchain are trustworthy and not able to be tampered with, and as such should be a legally accepted solution for food traceability, processing and auditing (Better Regulation).
As it stands now, regulatory bodies and governments depend on companies to follow the rules by themselves, and can usually only carry out spot checks to monitor compliance. These spot checks are resource intensive and often regarded as insufficient when examples of companies violating the rules intentionally or unintentionally surface in the public media.
Systems like emission certificate trade, or water or soil contamination, for example, are frequently subject to fraud and breach of trust, and are hard to control.
Blockchain based tracking systems also provide significant productivity gains and thus financial gains (‘regulatory measures that secure a decent living’ for EU farmers and fishers).
With regard to the big picture, European Green Deal targets: including blockchain based systems means Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) becomes a byproduct of normal business transactions and material flows without significant overheads, and with the capacity for full transparency.
We have studied the use of blockchain based systems for this extensively and even piloted use cases as shown in www.ReCarbonX.com
Read full response