WEBVTT

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Do you know where what you buy
or wear or eat comes from?

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Do you know whose hands 
what you've bought has passed through?

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Do you think about it?

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Do you care?

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Now, I'm a consumer,
just like everyone else.

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I buy things; I wear things; I eat things.

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But these are questions that
have plagued me for a really long time.

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Why?

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Well, I work in very large
and very complex organizations,

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the ones that are generally held to task
over everything they do or don't do.

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And it's my role

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to work across these organizations
and their supply chains

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to reduce their impact on the environment
and the communities in which they operate.

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So basically, I am a professional
sustainability person.

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The good news is that so many of us
want to buy sustainable goods.

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We want to know that the people
who made our clothes were paid fairly

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and that the environment wasn't harmed
in producing the food we ate.

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In fact, 66% of us even say we're willing
to pay more for sustainable goods.

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And, of course, you and I want to know

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that what we've bought
was sourced sustainably.

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But how do we know this?

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Well, we need to ask a whole bunch
of very important and valid questions.

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There's just one teeny-tiny problem.

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The supply chains of everything we buy
are really, really complex.

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I know this because it's my job
to collect the data

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and look at it from all the way
through the process.

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It's incredibly important work.

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But I've got to tell you, it's not easy.

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Let me give you an example.

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Okay, so here, this is a cake.

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So for you, this might look
like celebratory goodness.

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For me, this is a source
of potentially unsustainable palm oil.

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Now, palm oil,
as I'm sure many of you know,

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has been linked to pretty horrible
farming practices

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and the destruction
of the orangutan habitat -

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were not produced sustainably.

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So this cake is a minefield

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when it comes to thinking
about whether or not it's sustainable.

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So let's start with the cake.

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Is there oil in it? Is it palm oil?

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If it's 8% by weight,
how much oil got in the cake?

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The cream layers -
has that got palm oil in it as well

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or did that fall below
the reportable threshold?

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The icing.

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So our manufacturer,
they get that from another manufacturer.

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Oh, and they just changed
their manufacturer.

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So did the new manufacturer
get the briefing from us on the palm oil?

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For the palm oil that we know about,
is it sustainable?

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Is it certified? And to what method?

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And do we have the certificates on file?

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Are there chocolate sprinkles on the cake?

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Are you kidding me?

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Did the supplier include the data
from the sprinkles in what they gave us?

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I'm going to have to go and ring them.

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And so it goes on.

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In this example alone, just in whether
or not the palm oil is sustainable,

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there's about 30 data points.

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Oh, you want to know,
like, the conditions of the factory

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or whether it's vegan,
GMO-free, organic, free range?

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Well, you're going to need
a whole lot more data points.

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All this from one really valid question.

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So why is it that this is a question
we should be asking?

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Well, we have a reported
40.3 million people

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in some form of modern slavery

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in the supply chains
of the products we buy.

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It's estimated that 71% of them are women.

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And we are in the midst
of the sixth great extinction -

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the Anthropocene, or age of humans -

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because it's us that's having the impact.

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This is not okay.

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The data that I collect,
it's a person, it's a habitat.

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I've got to tell you, sometimes you can't
see that through the spreadsheets.

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But I, really, I can't lose sight of this,

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because it's my analysis of this data

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that enables a company to make
a more sustainable decision.

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But sometimes, companies
don't have the visibility that they need,

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so whether it's through limitations
of information or ignorance

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or sometimes deliberate avoidance.

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And this lack of transparency
is a huge problem for everyone.

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In fact, in a study done last year,
which was a global study,

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54% of the manufacturers surveyed
said they had no visibility

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into their supply chain
and sustainability related risks.

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So we've got a bit of a problem.

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A really big gap.

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But what if there was a better way?

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What if there was a way we could get
faster and more accurate data

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to help us solve
these supply chain issues.

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What if I could open up my cupboard
and scan everything in there

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and get a full suite of information 
about what was there?

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From who made it, where it was from,
the country of origin,

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the greenhouse gas emissions
along the supply chain,

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the conditions of the factory.

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What if technology could help us solve
and crack the sustainability code?

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Well, industry is actually beginning
to deploy this type of technology.

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So it enables people like me

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to more readily act
on the information I've received.

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So blockchain, combined
with mobile and smart tags,

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has been used to trace
tuna provided to restaurants in Japan.

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Blockchain has also been used to verify
fair paid workers for 1,000 coconuts.

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What if we could actually train
our supply chains to self-check?

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Or to identify whether there was a gap
or an anomaly in the sustainability data?

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What if we could order continuously,
rather than just at a point in time?

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What if we could combine machine learning

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as an application
of artificial intelligence

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and blockchain

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to not just identify and trace

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but to validate and assure
that the right thing,

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from raw material to finished product,

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was done correctly
all the way through the process?

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I believe, and it's my firm belief,

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that it's going to be this type of data

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and accelerated process

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through blockchain,
digital technology, and signatures,

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and artificial intelligence
is going to be crucial

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in enabling us to collect the data

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to eradicate the issues
I mentioned earlier.

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And we shouldn't be shying away from this;

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we should embrace it
because sustainability affects us all.

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And so we all need to fight.

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It's your fight as consumers

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to ask where what you've bought

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has come from

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and challenge the answers
that you're given.

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It's the corporate fight
to work with like-minded suppliers

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who are galvanized
towards making these changes.

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And it's my fight

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to continue to pore through
those wretched spreadsheets today

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and analyzing and grinding the data

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with a firm eye
on the technology of tomorrow.

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And this should give you
a resounding sense of hope

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that there are solutions,

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that by challenging the status quo,

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thinking creatively,

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and changing our mindset
about how things have always been done

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that we can adopt new and exciting ways

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to change the game

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on how we conduct ourselves
as corporates and consumers

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across an increasingly smaller world.

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Thank you.

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[Applause]