Beverage giant Coca-Cola to fight forced labour with Blockchain technology
Coca-Cola and the US State Department along with companies Bitfury and Emercoin are launching a blockchain based Distributed Ledger System to store employee details in attempt to curb against the global problem of forced labor. A study released last year by KnowTheChain (KTC), a partnership founded by U.S. based Humanity United, showed that most food and beverage companies fall short in their efforts to solve the problem.
As reported by Reuters, Brent Wilton (Global Head of Workplace Rights at Coca-Cola) stated that:
“We are partnering with the pilot of this project to further increase transparency and efficiency of the verification process related to labor policies within our supply chain.”
Blockchain Trust Accelerator (BTA), a non-profit organization involved in the project provided the following details about this project
The new venture is intended to create a secure registry for workers and their contracts using blockchain’s validation and digital notary capabilities
By utilizing the vast experience of the US state department with Labor Protection over the years, the blockchain platform itself will be build by Bitfury group with Emercoin offering blockchain services.
Coca-Cola, one of the top global companies has pledged to conduct 28 country-level studies on child labor, forced labor, and land rights for its sugar supply chains by 2020.
The project is still in early stage though it could offer some improvements over the current employment system which has loopholes to abuse the labors. Whether Blockchain can fix these loopholes and make way for a better employment system remains to be seen.
This is an amazing cause, and even though I am not much of a fan of companies such as Coca-Cola, there is a trend towards CSR developments. Maybe this project will do as much good for the human society as much as it does for the company's image. Always hoping for the best.
My thoughts exactly, lets hope they actually complete this project. If they did other companies from other sectors might also follow suit.
That could be helpful. Forced labout is rampant, espeiclly in Asia.
yes this could even change the way of the current employment system fot the better