My Story™ - A blockchain-powered digital assurance solution

With consumer trust shifting from brands to products, brands are challenged not only to manage their performance but to link their efforts and investments to a single product. This has traditionally been communicated through corporate reports, certificates and labels, often in a technical way, that may be rather inaccessible to or hold little meaning or value for consumers. The My Story™ solution by DNV GL gives brands a unique opportunity to share with consumers the authentic product story – from quality to social, environmental or ethical integrity of a product – displaying verified facts stored on a blockchain platform. Giving a unique ID to each product, My Story™ provides instant access to the authentic product story, verified by DNV GL. The consumer, through a QR-code on the product, can dive into the aspects of interest on their smart device.

Where blockchain enters the picture

Companies today are under pressure to manage performance and value chains in a sustainable and transparent way. At the same time, supply chains are evolving, augmented by digitalization – the industry 4.0 revolution—evolving regulations and increasing consumer power. This means increased efficiency pressures, faster reputational risks and shorter product life-cycles. On top of this, they are challenged by consumers to share the true story behind their products. How can companies respond?

Blockchain technology acts as a perfect trust generator for different types of eco-systems. The blockchain ensures the authenticity of data and renders it trustable among stakeholders previously unknown to each other. Any attempt to manipulate products, existing data or information within the distributed ledger is made impossible. The solution used for My Story™ is based on a public, decentralized and distributed ledger provided by Vechain, a leading blockchain provider and DNV GL partner. It is implementable for companies, as it is an ecosystem that includes user management and connectivity options for IoT devices, for example, and it is a scalable and affordable enterprise solution.

How does My Story™ work?

The blockchain-based ecosystem enables companies to turn marketing buzzwords into a true, verified story. For companies seriously investing in sustainable processes and value chains it enables sharing of these efforts, setting them apart from less serious, greenwashing players.

My Story™ starts with defining the story to be told. Is it about sustainability, quality, authenticity, i.e. workers’ rights, animal welfare, ecological footprint, origin and provenance or is it about food safety, traceability, water footprint and origin, for example? Then the company must gather evidence from their supply chain of the performance for the characteristics chosen, such as proof of actions by people and machines, documents such as certificates, and collecting or importing data from production systems (ERPs). Our experts work with you to establish a framework to document your current supply chain practices, the sourcing of data and verification of the data, which is recorded in the blockchain. In this way, companies can turn corporate data normally used in risk mitigating actions into brand building opportunities, as they are turning technical facts into a compelling, emotional story linked to the product, instantly accessible by consumers.

My Story™ as a service?

For companies serious about sustainable value chains, My Story™ is a means to effectively bridge the existing trust gap between brands and consumers. My Story™ as a service will help companies with:

• Data collection
• Access to product information for consumers
• Enterprise and product ID issued
• Product story shared in the My Story™ dAPP
• Verification of activities and data (DNV GL)
• Stored on blockchain (VeChain)

My Story™ is applicable to the supply chains of packaged goods. The solution combines our deep industry expertise, physical independent audits with data collection and verification services on a blockchain-powered eco-system. While improving the consumer product experience and enabling feedback, My Story™ is a powerful means to facilitate internal improvement opportunities as well. Analyzing the amounts of data collected could drive productivity and quality improvements, detecting improvements or increase control throughout the supply chain. In cases of multiple parties participating in the same eco-system, data could be used to address common industry challenges.

Pilot projects

My Story™ is currently being deployed in projects together with companies in various geographies and industries, such as:

• Telling the story of Italian wines from grape to bottle
• Guaranteeing the authenticity of fashion clothes

Blockchain-powered digital assurance solutions

We also use blockchain-powered digital assurance solutions and ecosystems to:

• Documenting the journey and freshness of ‘ready-to-eat’ meals
• Improving patient safety at hospitals
• Store and share all DNV GL-Business Assurance certificates
• Digital low carbon ecosystem, which is incentivizing consumers to be proactive in reducing, at individual level, their carbon emissions related to mobility.