Last month I spoke at the Forum on Green Transformation of Textile Supply Chains in Shanghai.

In the room were producers, brands, regulators, auditors, investors, and the staff running the event. Almost everyone works in compliance every day. 

When I described the saturation of traceability platforms - the duplicated paperwork, the same data entered again and again into different systems, they knew what I was talking about.

And that’s the problem. 

Not a lack of traceability or data - the cotton industry creates detailed, verified data at every stage of production. Farmers create it, ginners create it, spinners create it, couriers, warehouses, traders, brands - everyone creates it.

But none of the systems holding that data talk to each other.

The data exists. It just doesn't travel.

The data stays behind. A bale of cotton crosses a border and its history doesn't follow. A spinner connecting to 150 different brands is expected to feed 150 different platforms. The same information, re-entered, reformatted, and reconstructed.

The industry doesn't need more traceability platforms. It needs infrastructure. A layer underneath all the different EPR systems that lets data travel the way materials travel - from source to finished product, across every border, without being lost or rebuilt along the way.

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That is what AWARE™ is building.

We demonstrated this in partnership with Sybil from Guan Xu, a Chinese first-mile traceability system, and Joy from Trecottton™, a certified cotton standard traced to individual farmer level. Gan Xu closes the first mile, AWARE™ carries that verified data forward to a finished product with a DPP generated automatically at the other end.

The cotton produced today will reach European shelves in one to three years. The EU DPP becomes mandatory in 2027. The infrastructure needs to exist now.

Thank you to Sherry for the invitation, to Sybil and to Joy for the partnership and for sharing the stage. The work being done at the first mile in China is exactly what the industry needs more of - and it deserves infrastructure that carries its value all the way to the end consumer.

If you want to understand how AWARE™ can help your data travel, get in touch.

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