The Stockholm-based Trustrace has announced the launch of TrusTrace Certified Material Compliance, along with the help of sportswear giant adidas, an early adopter of the tool.

TrusTrace already leads the market with its platform for product traceability and for accessing supply chain transparency in the fashion world. This new tool is a one-stop solution that allows traceability almost on a real-time basis when it comes to materials.

The new program covers the vast range of needs for material compliance, this includes the percentage of certified materials versus non-certified. This method supports multiple chains of custody models, encompassing both single-component products and multi-component products. It also provides a centralized source of truth, providing companies with confidence while on their compliance journey, and simultaneously helps their personal commitments to transition into more sustainable portfolios.

“In the midst of global greenwashing and challenges with unsubstantiated claims, brands and regulators are moving quickly to instill confidence among consumers that products are, indeed, as sustainable as they claim to be. Brands that want to establish near real-time traceability at the lot level by mapping the movement of raw materials to finished goods, and to automatically calculate the sustainability metrics of those goods, now have a proven solution in TrusTrace Certified Material Compliance,” said Shameek Ghosh, CEO of TrusTrace.

“By linking all purchase orders to production steps, certificates, supplier declarations and quality reports on the TrusTrace platform, Certified Material Compliance helps brands manage risk and compliance and allows them to prove sustainability claims with confidence.”

adidas was one of the first big companies to use the TrusTrace Certified Material Compliance platform. The brand came in early, providing advice when the system was still under development, offering expertise on scalable, digital solutions that fit with enterprise systems.

The sportswear brand didn’t waste any time in scaling the solution. Wwithin the first four months of using the platform, it quickly recorded over one1 million transactions covering 10,000 materials and styles, spanning 8,000 facilities.

Using the platform allows brands to track materials in a standardized, digital and scalable way, which in turn, aids them to develop more transparency on their sustainability goals. For a brand such as adidas, these goals include transitioning to 100% recycled polyester by 2024 and having 90% of itstheir articles utilise sustainable technology, material, design or production method by the following year.

“As part of its commitment to sustainability, adidas has worked with TrusTrace to gain more visibility into our complete supply chain down to the materials level,” said Katja Schreiber, Senior Vice President Sustainability at adidas. “The information gleaned from TrusTrace Certified Material Compliance will help us to create even more transparency of our sustainability efforts.”

Having the possibility of tracing materials in real-time gives brands the opportunity to collect data from supply chain transactions at the same time as products and materials cycle through the value chain. This then provides the finished products with traceability data even before reaching the market. This, in turn, allows brands to communicate the product’s life story to consumers, from the origin point to the moment it hits the shelves, including the integrity of the materials used.