The safest car in the world is on a new mission of setting new standards. Incorporating parts that have been manufactured in ethical way is of utmost importance when Volvo is concerned. In order to secure the complete transparency in the production and supply chain and to satisfy the highest quality standards, Volvo and Oracle blockchain teamed up.
Setting the Standards
Volvo has already achieved the status of one of the most reliable cars in the world. They have put safety first and it paid out. Today, Volvo continues raising bars for other players. Namely, the company decided to continue to act in line with their politics so far. Therefore, they turned to not just preserving the environment but becoming socially aware.
On the heels of the success with their first fully electric vehicle XC40 Recharge, Volvo decided to join forces with Oracle blockchain. The goal is to track the production of cobalt. Volvo uses cobalt for the batteries that they incorporate in electric vehicles.
Putting Social Awareness First
As Volvo reportedly plans to make half of their production line electrical up to 2025, they need a lot of cobalt. And when we say “a lot”, we mean it. The interesting fact about electric cars is that each car battery requires between 10 kg and 20 kg of cobalt. Major supplies of cobalt come from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The difficulties which Volvo faced included the fact that child labor is a widely spread phenomenon in Congo. Daily wages go as low as $1 a person. This was completely unacceptable for a socially aware company, such as Volvo.
The way they decided to solve this issue is to introduce blockchain in the supply chain of cobalt. That way, each step of the mining, handling, production, supply, and transport of cobalt is recorded onto blockchain. The details that blockchain keeps are transparent and immutable. In case anyone trie sto change any of the details regarding the supply process, that information would be visible.
Transparency of Supply Chain
Mark Rakhmilevich, Senior Director of Blockchain Product Management at Oracle reportedly stated:
“Volvo is ensuring that their supplies of cobalt are clear and safe from unethical issues by tracing raw materials on the Oracle blockchain. We’ve been working with Volvo since this summer to implement a material tracking application that captures data relevant to different points in the manufacturing process.”
By doing so, Volvo will have direct input to the cobalt’s origin, weight and size, the chain of custody and confirmation whether the behavior of all participants in the process is in line with globally recognized supply chain guidelines.
How important the process of manufacturing is to you, from the consumer ’s point of view?