Are you searching for precise indication of the provenance of products? We provide it with our digital passport for products. It enables you to monitor the life cycle of different recyclable products like plastic, car batteries, and many others. Blockchain technology allows tracking waste generation, from raw materials to recyclers.
Blockchain is far more than just a technology that supports bitcoin. By offering a distributed ledger that enables secure and verifiable transactions between multiple businesses (or individuals), it most certainly impacts business in profound ways. Collaboration is the essence of business life, but it doesn’t come easily. Your partners may lack commitment; they may not even tell the whole truth. For example, suppliers may try to hide quality problems, and customers may ask you to renegotiate prices despite initially agreeing upon them. Communication, sharing information, and coordination between multiple parties are difficult. The fact that information exchange sometimes still takes place through a huge amount of paper documentation (which cannot be searched and is easily lost) or countless emails (which are cumbersome to sort through) exacerbates these challenges.
However, there is one technology that could fundamentally change the way all parties work – a blockchain.
Blockchains have the potential to radically transform many aspects of business life, while being a tool particularly well-suited to boosting cooperation. Blockchains are digital ledgers in which the parties involved in a process (e.g., business exchange) have control over the shared information – it’s a feature that makes blockchains ideal in situations where trust plays a critical role. The technological construction of a blockchain makes it impossible for anyone to change its content without the consent of the other parties. All participants can see the content, but none of them can modify it. Blockchain is also known for the so-called smart contracts, which mean automatic execution of certain clauses when specific conditions are met (e.g., breaking a given condition results in automatic payment for the damages, without the need of going through the evidence process). In recent years, blockchains have proven very useful in industries such as logistics, insurance and finance, energy, and arts.
To appreciate the ways blockchains can support business, consider the task of shipping perishable goods across borders – a task that requires effective coordination between, among others, suppliers, merchants, carriers, customs officials, and inspectors. When parties transfer cargo to each other, a tremendous amount of information is passed on with it. Each party keeps its own records and communicates with only one partner at a time. It often leads to
unequal level of knowledge among different participants, shipping delays, and even falsification of documents or products. If, say, a buyer expects goods to be continuously cooled during the shipping process and temperatures exceed agreed-upon trigger thresholds, this will most likely cause a dispute between the buyer, supplier, and carrier. The disagreement might even escalate into lengthy litigation. The carrier may deny liability to reduce damages, arguing that customs is to blame for delaying the shipment or that inspectors mishandled the cargo. The buyer will turn to the supplier for compensation, and in turn, the latter will have to negotiate with the carrier. And so on.
European Commission and 29 European countries decided to build blockchain-based cross-border services for public administrations. On their initiative, a special committee was appointed: European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI). Its aim is not only to build Europe’s own blockchain service infrastructure but also to assure secure sharing of data amongst authorities in the EU. Since 2020, EBSI has been deploying a network of distributed blockchain nodes across Europe, supporting applications focused on selected use cases.
Billon is one of the 5 companies chosen by the EU to deliver such use case pilots, digital product passport being one of them.
By creating a digital passport for products, Billon enables users to monitor the lifecycle of common products, such as plastic, to reduce waste (which includes the CO2 emission during production, logistics, and use). The initial focus will be on two cases: plastic waste and car batteries.
Why is that so important? The answer comes from the environmental regulatory area. European Green Deal aims to make the EU the world’s first “climate-neutral bloc” by 2050. This initiative involves circular economy, building renovation, biodiversity, farming, and innovation.
The EU works on a holistic tool called Sustainable Product Initiative (SPI). Its purpose is to verify the relationship between a product and the protection of the environment.
A digital product passport (DPP) is an important part of the SPI package. The main goal of DPP is to provide the public and recycling companies with information transparency in recycling, repairing, and reusing products that play a significant role from the environmental point of view.
The SPI package should come into force in Europe in the following years.
We are building the prototype of the solution that reflects all regulatory requirements and can be used in the waste management industry.
It is estimated that the solution will be available for testing in 3Q 2022.
Blockchain is real and actionable today, ready to take over not only cross-border payments but many of the most critical financial use cases for citizens, consumers, governments, and businesses.
Other potential use cases for blockchain applications:
Remote contracting: Agreements concluded remotely in real-time. The shift from paper documents distribution to end customers into regulatory compliant, fully digital communication that reduces costs and time.
Secured repository of Legal Documents: Shared repository as the only source of truth. Total visibility, trackable history, and complete data and documents integrity together with tamper-proof, immutable register, and unaltered storage of legally binding documents.
Documents authentication from multiple sources: Optimization of internal and external processes – like sales, billing, and managing multiple databases with clients’ – while providing data integrity protection and fully digital identity management.
Tamper-proof storage of personal credentials and certifications: The prevention of fraud and manipulation addressed by immutable records certified by a trusted authority for education diplomas and certificates, work records, or healthcare records.
We are a full-stack solution provider. Our technology stack and infrastructure consist of the following components:
Billon Group Ltd. was founded in the UK in 2015, following several years of R&D in Poland. Its unique blockchain (Distributed Ledger Technology protocol) has been supported by many R&D grants, including the EU Horizon 2020 program. Billon subsidiary companies are licensed to issue electronic money by regulators in the UK and Poland. One of the biggest projects Billon is working on is Digital Product Passport, with the goal to provide the public and waste management companies with information transparency regarding recycling, repairing, and reusing products.
Billon created a high-performance blockchain for all asset classes: national currencies, confidential documents and data, and privacy and identity that meet regulatory requirements. With the protocol designed for high throughput and low maintenance costs, our mission is to become the backbone of all kinds of enterprise applications and unleash the transformational capabilities of blockchain in the regulated world.