Technology

Blockchain

Blockchain is a distributed ledger technology, used to synchronize digital records across multiple locations, which relies upon cryptography rather than trusted third parties to confirm transactions. Due to its characteristics, blockchain is increasingly used as a tool to increase transparency, provide provenance data and establish end-to-end traceability in mineral supply chains.

There are an increasing number of blockchain-enabled projects that are under development or have started implementation in mineral supply chains. These are often applied by a relatively limited number of supply chain actors and lack a shared understanding of definitions, concepts and data attributes.

What We Do

For blockchain technology to significantly increase transparency in mineral supply chains, it needs to be implemented by a sufficient number of supply chain actors. Furthermore, blockchain-enabled solutions should be able to exchange data across different platforms. With a goal to promote the interoperability of blockchain-enabled solutions in mineral supply chains, the RMI promotes:

  1. The common adoption of definitions and concepts in the application of blockchain-enabled solutions in mineral supply chains.
  2. Consensus on the fundamental data attributes and an industry identification (ID) system to be included at each stage of the blockchain-enabled solution.
  3. Increased awareness of the applicability of blockchain technology, its limitations and its impact on supply chain actors and local communities in producing countries.

RMI Blockchain Guidelines

The RMI released its Second Edition of the Blockchain Guidelines in March 2020. The Blockchain Guidelines are agnostic to the type of operations for mineral production, trade and processing as well as the mineral or metal itself. This second edition of the Blockchain Guidelines builds on the previous edition and introduces principles for interoperability between different chain-of-custody solutions. Interoperability is widely recognized as a major factor impacting the adoption of blockchain solutions at scale.
 
The Blockchain Guidelines were developed by the RMI, RMI members, and blockchain solution providers under and RMI facilitated working group. The RMI has received, assessed and incorporated input from numerous stakeholders on an ongoing basis. We invite any interested party to test the guidelines in the conceptualization, design and implementation of blockchain-based solutions in mineral supply chains.

For more information contact RMI@responsiblebusiness.org.

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