Steven Capell Impressed with quality and business language which gave the impression of work that was close to completion.

Gabi Kimura  understood from the discussion paper that the main target was B2B, but now wonders after Professor Huang’s introductory talk whether the consumer is perhaps the intended target, or at least one target. Pointed out that that consumers don’t want to placed in a position of making decisions based on complex data, preferring to rely on experts.

Brett Hyland  expressed the view that the extent of conformity data accessibility is ultimately up to the market.

Peter Carter  there had been early awareness of G2G exchange systems and the paper sought to bring attention to B2G/B2B as a focus. However, more recent changes such as USFDA Food Modernisation Act and the EU Digital Product Passport proposal are causing a rapid shift in the landscape.  It may be time to pause ask whether a process aimed at everyone is value-adding or does it become harder to manage?

Etty – Based on Israeli study the conclusion is that all groups can potentially benefit from an initiative of this nature. SME and regulators are aware of the changing environment, moving from translated certificates to QR code systems and similar. Considers the framework as articulated in the paper to be positive and of potential benefit to all groups.

Jeanne HUANG G2G/B2B is already complex. Bringing consumers in brings additional complexity, including cross-border privacy law issues, a more restricted start may be worthwhile.  Also questioned the word ‘Claim’ in the title of the report, which was not explicitly addressed within the paper.

Steven Capell make the group aware of current UN ECE project textile and leather traceability – challenge over long global supply chains is the hundreds of standards containing thousands of criteria relevant to substantiating product claims, so how does an end-user make sense of this? How do we make the meaning of an individual certificate apparent within a long list of applicable certificates? Can we formulate an ‘approach’ (not hard rules) for this within the document?

Jaco Voorspuij  the need to avoid overloading the consumer with data is a key problem, aware of this from EU DPP discussions. Industrial products being looked at first, since the raw data is more easily understood by users in that group.  But this will eventually move into consumer retail sector. Sees the need for some kind of organisation(s) for turning data into information that a consumer can understand, some kind of overarching layer of certification. However, we still have some years before this becomes a critical problem.

Brett Hyland  test reports are generally not publicly available so all data is not likely to be directly visible to a consumer anyway, but users may still be interested to know that a certificate existed and that it related to the particular physical product purchased.

Kevin Shakespeare  the trading community considers product conformity to be a critical part of the story and is highly supportive of moves to strengthen this aspect of trade. Current projects of relevance include Digital trade corridors, some are part of the Ecosystem of Trust system, pilots include coffee/tea/flowers from Kenya and fishfingers from the EU. Question is how would these ideas be progressed by talking to pilot? Opportunities include UK/AUS, UK/Israel. Also training for ICC DSI to be delivered on e-docs and possible that some aspects of the framework under discussion could be incorporated as relevant material.

Andrew – want to bring to the group’s attention the US Border Protection blockchain pilot implementing ACE2.0, for which the use cases include food safety with reference to the US FDA Food Traceability Rule.

Neil Savery paper sets the scene very well, commenting on the title of the paper wondering whether the tracking/movement has been captured. Traceability is not just about the certificate buy the link to physical goods.

Brett Hyland  the framework is not conceived as a supply chain platform, following how factories put together their products and get it them onto supermarket shelves. Rather it is envisaged as a resource that supply chains can use, discovering validated conformity data at its source.

Ian Watt sees a link to Multi-modal track and trace in conjunction with conformity data, two parts of the same picture and need to be brought together.

Jaco Voorspuij agrees and suggests members start with the recent presentation before reading the detailed BRS paper. One caveat is that the Multi Modal track and trace is predicated on seller and one buyer, so iterative instances will be required for full supply chain traceability, for which the textile and leather supply chain work will also be instructive. These form building blocks which can be combined but doing so will take work – not necessarily difficult but it will be time-consuming.  The project needs at least begin to clarify for industry users how these concepts might be combined in order for a full picture to emerge of end-to-end supply chain traceability combined with validation of certificates, whether for farm products, mining products or any other product delivered to an industry user, a retail consumer or a healthcare patient

Peter Carter the document under consideration is a product of its time and place and as such has overlooked some rich and interesting perspectives from other parts of the world, such as economies with highly sophisticated manufacturing sectors. There is also a need to map out the transformational pressures that stakeholder groups will face in the digital age and think about how they might navigate such changes. The work may best be viewed as a fusion of ideas taking into account the varied perspectives as well as UNECE and UNCEFACT outputs in related areas.