Businesses can integrate blockchain to improve their supply chain management through a more transparent and accurate end-to-end tracking. 

Blockchain certainly has the potential to revolutionise the supply chain industry. By integrating blockchain into their management systems, businesses can improve their supply chain management through a more transparent and accurate end-to-end tracking.

At Preferred by Nature, we believe that businesses across any industry can reap better rewards and improve performance in production while mitigating environmental impacts. Through our blockchain services, we help you leverage innovative technology to enhance transparency and the integrity of your supply chain. 

Timber Chain

The Timber Chain combines the power of trusted certification with cutting-edge technology to provide an integrated supply chain solution that will revolutionise global assurance services. 

Providing reliable certification has long been a part of Preferred by Nature’s approach to improving sustainable land management and business practices across the globe. But to meet the demands from regulations, such as EU Timber Regulation (EUTR), while keeping up with global digitisation trends, a new, more collaborative approach was needed. That is why Preferred by Nature and iov42 have come together to deliver the Timber Chain.

This is more than just a chain-of-custody innovation. The Timber Chain is a first-of-its-kind service that enhances the digital data recording processes for companies, optimises the auditing and certification processes for certifiers, and ensures data integrity by protecting everything on a cryptographically-secure platform. 

The Timber Chain was first designed to streamline the certification of timber supply chains. However, the platform’s underlying technology and methodology can be adapted and scaled to enhance the traceability and transparency of any climate impact commodity, from palm oil to rubber to cacao. 

What makes the Timber Chain secure?  
The Timber Chain is delivered in partnership with iov42, who provides the technological infrastructure for this service. The fundamental principles of blockchain make iov42’s technology secure and immutable. However, the real power of iov42’s trust-building identity platform lies in its ability to enforce organisations’ rules and requirements through the use of robust identity, asset, claim and endorsement tools. 

Who can benefit from this? 
The Timber Chain can optimise information sharing, certification and auditing capabilities for any actor along the supply chain. Everyone from forest managers to wood product retailers will be able to say goodbye to traditional, labour-intensive models that are costly, largely paper-based, and prone to human error or even corruption.  

Why should you engage Timber Chain?
The Timber Chain will be your supply chain’s trusted source of truth. All relevant supply chain stakeholders can access and use the Timber Chain, increasing cross-chain transparency and improving the overall efficiency of auditing.  

With the Timber Chain, companies can: 

• Create permanent digital records of commodity stocks, bundling / sorting processes, and shipments 
• Upload all relevant information to be easily accessed and verified by Preferred by Nature
• Digitally receive and store LegalSource certificates from Preferred by Nature 
• Share shipment information with buyers so they can trace the commodity’s origin 

For more information, visit the iov42 website here.

Get started

The Timber Chain makes streamlining the certification process simple, fast and secure. 

Straightforward registration

1. First, your company will create a unique, verified identity for the Timber Chain.
2. This identity is shared with Preferred by Nature’s Timber Chain team.  
3. Once authenticated, Preferred by Nature will provide your company with access to the Timber Chain.

Seamless supply chain management

1. Your company will then be able to grant access to individual employees. Depending on the permissions you grant these employees, they will be able to create records of commodity stocks, associated LegalSource certificates, and/or shipments.  
2. You will be able to share records with downstream supply chain stakeholders.

Enhanced transparency and security 

1. The accessibility of Timber Chain’s secure, non-corruptible records provide levels of transparency and traceability that are currently not available on the market. 
2. Your company can activate and deactivate employee access to the Timber Chain as necessary, ensuring the highest levels of supply chain security.

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Key benefits

Benefits of using this service

• Increased visibility, accountability and integrity across the supply chain
• Unprecedented transparency and accountability for supply chain stakeholders
• Greater regulatory compliance (e.g., EUTR)
• Standardised data capture, analysis and reporting
• Immediate visibility of records 
• Reduced cost and time requirements, allowing stakeholders to focus on value-adding activities
• Complimentary to the assurance needs of client ESG priorities and goals

Our expertise

Preferred by Nature is an international non-profit organisation, working to support better land management and business practices that benefit people, nature and the climate. Aside from promoting and delivering sustainability certification services, the organisation also engages in projects that develop new green solutions, conserve biodiversity and/or help consumers make more sustainable choices. Over the past 25 years, Preferred by Nature has work extensively within forestry certification systems, assessing companies for certification and providing high-level training for companies and organisations of all size along the timber supply chain. The organisation is also recognised by the EU as a Monitoring Organisation under the EUTR.

iov42 helps organisations that rely entirely on their users’ trust, but whose processes or products aren’t as robust as they could be. iov42’s trust-building technology enforces the organisation’s rules & requirements in a way that provides verification, so that their users can have peace of mind when dealing with each other. It’s all done through an identity-centric platform inspired by blockchain, but with pioneering technology that makes it simpler, faster, and more secure. iov42’s ultimate aim is simple: to help create a digital society built of interconnected groups that can fully trust one another.