Sappi Verve Partners With Birla Cellulose To Provide Forest-to-Garment Traceability

Sappi Verve has partnered with Birla Cellulose, one of the leading viscose manufacturers in the textile value chain, to provide a forest-to-garment traceability solution for brand owners. Through this collaborative partnership, Sappi Verve, a world market leader in dissolving pulp, continues to strengthen its sustainability credentials within the textile industry.

“This collaboration is part of Sappi’s vision as a sustainable woodfiber business to provide relevant solutions and deliver enhanced value as a trusted partner to all its stakeholders,” says Krelyne Andrew, Sustainability General Manager for Sappi Verve.

Traceable and transparent supply chains are key to providing brand owners and consumers with the assurance and confidence that their products originate from sustainable and renewable sources of wood, free from deforestation, where biodiversity is promoted and where the customary, traditional, and civil rights of people are upheld. This collaboration allows for sustainability-focused consumers, brand owners, and retailers who make more informed buying decisions.

The efforts have been recognized by Forbes magazine’s “Blockchain 50” list, which features companies that lead in employing distributed ledger technology and have revenue or a valuation of at least $1 billion. Twenty-one newcomers, including Sappi, are recognized for 2021.

To provide this brand-owner traceability solution, Sappi coupled its comprehensive database on wood origin for its dissolving pulp operations in South Africa and the United States with the use of Birla’s pioneering GreenTrack™ blockchain technology.

Blockchain is a system that employs distributed ledger technology to record, duplicate, and distribute information to an entire network of computer systems, which then makes it difficult or impossible to change, hack, or cheat the system. Birla Cellulose, along with its value chain partners, provides transparency on a “live” basis for the entire journey of cellulose, from a well-certified forest to the consumer’s hands.

More than 250 supply chain partners, including Walmart and Marks & Spencer, now use GreenTrack to verify the sustainability of the apparel they sell.