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Procedia Computer Science 217 (2023) 1437–1445

4th International Conference on Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing

Exploring blockchain-based Traceability for Food Supply Chain

Sustainability: Towards a Better Way of Sustainability
Communication with Consumers
Shoufeng Cao*, Hope Johnson, Ayesha Tulloch
Queensland University of Technology (QUT), 2 George St, Brisbane City QLD 4000, Australia

Abstract

While there is consensus that blockchain technology can improve supply chain transparency and operational
efficiency, scholars and practitioners have only recently considered how blockchain could improve the sustainability
of supply chains. This article contributes to this emerging body of work by considering how to use blockchain to
enable sustainable food supply chains. To advance the use of blockchain for sustainability in the food supply chain
context, this study proposes a blockchain-enabled architectural framework for trustworthy communication about the
sustainability attributes of food products. The blockchain-enabled architectural framework outlines a multi-layered
architecture for utilising blockchain-based traceability as a way to signal to consumers the trustworthy sustainability
attributes of a particular food product. This kind of sustainability communication enables the accessibility of
traceable and verifiable evidence and therefore can significantly enhance the reliability and trustworthiness of
sustainable claims/credentials compared to printed food labels or other digital means of communication. The study
contributes to sustainability communication empowered by blockchain-based traceability and offers invaluable
insights to both researchers and practitioners in the industry 4.0 landscape.
© 2022
© 2022 The
The Authors.
Authors. Published
Published by
by ELSEVIER
Elsevier B.V.B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 4th International Conference on Industry 4.0 and Smart
Peer-review
Manufacturingunder responsibility of the scientific committee of the 3rd International Conference on Industry 4.0 and Smart
Manufacturing
Keywords: Blockchain; Traceability; Food; Supply chain; Sustainability; Communication

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: shoufeng.cao@qut.edu.au

1877-0509 © 2022 The Authors. Published by ELSEVIER B.V.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 3rd International Conference on Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing

1877-0509 © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0)
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 4th International Conference on Industry 4.0 and Smart
Manufacturing
10.1016/j.procs.2022.12.342
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2 Author name / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2022) 000–000

1. Introduction

Agriculture and food systems are at the centre of the multiple sustainability challenges facing humanity including
climate change, food and nutrition insecurity and biodiversity loss. Food systems stakeholders, including
government, industry and the wider community, are increasingly concerned with minimising the adverse, and
maximising the positive, environmental, economic and social impacts of food systems [1–3]. Market change in food
systems, whereby consumers purchase more sustainably produced food products and therefore incentivise
sustainable food production, is an important driver of improved food supply chain sustainability [70]. Consumers
worldwide are rapidly shifting purchasing behaviours and preferences towards healthier and sustainable products,
especially following the COVID-19 pandemic [4]. A 2021 Deloitte survey found that one third of UK consumers
claim to have stopped purchasing certain brands due to sustainability concerns.
A key barrier to advance more sustainable food chains through consumer choice is how the sustainability of a
product is currently verified by actors along the supply chain, including the consumer. The main verification system
for sustainability claims are certification schemes whereby a business, or a third-party, develops sustainability
standards (such as organic certification or fair trade), and to be certified, supply chain stakeholders must produce
evidence that the standards have been met [68]. The consumer then uses the certification scheme logo on the label,
or the written claims, as a basis for their purchasing decisions. Growing consumer preferences for food products that
comply with a voluntary sustainability standard has increased uptake in these standards by agricultural producers,
and is driving more commodity traders, food processing companies and retailers to commit to sustainable sourcing
[5]. Many barriers exist to widespread adoption of sustainability certification schemes, including uncertainties
associated with competing standards, high costs of certification and auditing, and changes to internal operations
required by producers [6].
Numerous studies indicate that sustainability claims are often vague and lack well-developed means of verifying
claims [7,8], which can further undermine consumer trust in the sustainability credentials of products [9].
Governments, non-governmental organisations, the media and scholars are increasingly investigating inaccurate
environmental claims on products, known as “greenwashing” [10,11]. The European Commission along with
national-level consumer agencies investigated environmental claims by companies and found that, of the 344 claims
examined, more than half did not provide sufficient information for a consumer to determine accuracy, 59% did not
provide evidence that was easily accessible to support a claim and 37% used vague statements such as “eco-friendly”
without substantiating the claim [12]. As industry stakeholders may make use of unverifiable claims and/or digitally
feed consumers with unaccountable information for ethical and financial purposes, the lack of trustworthy
information is a barrier to sustainability communication and could give rise to ‘Market for Lemons’, which deprives
genuinely sustainable food products of gaining a market competitive advantage and building customer loyalty [13].
To address this issue, some companies have invested in information and communication technologies to digitise
sustainability communication [14]. Sustainable digital communication may offer a way of providing more
information and evidence about the sustainability of a product. However, it also has limitations regarding data
security, and the potential for data manipulation and alteration [15].
Blockchain – an emerging paradigm for immutable information storage and sharing – has the unique potential to
improve sustainability communication by recording accountable information related to food sustainability at all
stages of the supply chain, enabling query and verification of individual food products by supply chain actors
(including consumers). By allowing for a decentralised and distributed protocol for recording transaction
information in a chain-like block [16], blockchain-based information communication goes beyond being merely a
process of digitally enabled communications. Its technical characteristics can ensure that each transaction activity
and associated information (e.g. food safety attributes like sanitation, storage and transportation temperatures, or
environmental impacts like greenhouse gas emissions) are maintained in a transparent, tamper-proof, verifiable, and
traceable manner on a blockchain network, which can prevent companies from altering their data to tailor their
results to what consumers are looking for. It also assures the consumer that the product they are buying came from a
known, and in this context more sustainable, producer and processor, building trust and product satisfaction [17].
Although several studies [18–20] have advocated that blockchain technology can contribute to addressing
sustainability issues, how blockchain-based traceability could be leveraged to enhance sustainability communication
with consumers is scarcely investigated in the literature.
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This paper explores how to advance blockchain-based traceability for food supply chain sustainability, by
focusing on how the blockchain can improve sustainability communication, in turn enabling consumer purchase of
sustainably produced foods that incentivise more sustainable supply chains. We propose a blockchain-enabled
architectural framework for sustainability communication, which incorporates four pillars of sustainability:
environment, society, economy and nutrition in the production-distribution-consumption cycle. The contribution of
this study is twofold: (i) extend knowledge about how to introduce blockchain innovation and applications to
transform the food sector; (ii) demonstrate the potential of emerging technologies, i.e. blockchain, to improve
sustainability communications with consumers.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews related research work in sustainability
communication and blockchain for food supply chain sustainability. This is followed by the provision of a
blockchain-enabled architectural framework for a better way of sustainability communication with consumers in
Section 3. Section 4 presents key results and discussion in comparison with previous studies. The final Section 5
ends with conclusions and directions for future research.

2. Related work

2.1. Sustainability communication

Sustainability communication refers to the communication of information about an organisation’s social and
environmental information to stakeholders, including investors and consumers (See, e.g., [69]). Communicating
sustainability has become a necessary business practice in today’s marketplace due to increasing sustainability
concerns [1–3]. In response, sustainability communication has transitioned from simply reporting on the compliance
of sustainability regulation towards demonstrating, and engaging in, a range of business practices that enable
sustainability [21,22]. The rise of third-party environmental and social certification schemes reflects the increasing
importance of sustainability communication [8,23]. However, there is still a lack of theoretical foundations for
sustainability communication [24], which is rooted in diverse domains, such as environment, risk and science
communication [25]. The importance of sustainability communication has been acknowledged in the literature and
numerous benefits have been identified to companies, such as stimulating pro-sustainable purchases, creating a
competitive advantage and differentiating their brands from competitors [26]. Sustainability communication has
been reviewed in several sectors, including forestry [27] and the tourism industry [24,28]. These studies argue that
sustainability communication needs further research efforts to demonstrate its value to sustainable development,
particularly on the role of digital communication in sustainability reporting, and the development of verification
methods to ensure communications are aligned with practices.
Digital means of verifying sustainability credentials and claims can be appealing to consumers due to the ability
to access and validate real-time information [29]. However, the possible risk of data manipulation or alteration in
websites and/or digital platforms [15,30] can lead to data integrity challenges and trust issues. The disclosure of
sustainability information alone cannot sufficiently ensure the validity of credentials and claims. This creates a need
to ensure such information is assured and accountable [23,31]. Sustainability assurance not only adds credibility to
the data and information disclosed, but also mitigates against the risk of inaccurate or misleading reporting [32]. Yet,
it remains unclear how to build sustainability information trustworthiness in the digital environment and whether
blockchain-based traceability can play a part in addressing the information quality and assurance issue.

2.2. Blockchain for food supply chain sustainability

Blockchain is the baseline technology invented for cryptocurrency transactions. Although it is still a nascent
technology, its technical capabilities have widely extended to transform business operations in multiple industries
[33]. The food industry has seen leading blockchain experiments compared with other industries [34,35], with a
growing number of reported blockchain applications to transform food supply chain management and governance
[36–40]. Blockchain’s traceability capabilities and immutable characteristics have been harnessed to improve food
traceability in terms of improving food safety [41,42], battling counterfeit products [43,44] and redefining trust or
bringing back trust to the food sector [39,45]. These studies have demonstrated the value of blockchain-based
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traceability in parts of and/or across the supply chain. A key challenge for achieving sustainable agri-food chains is
the lack of traceable information about sustainable attributes, such as environmental conditions and production sites,
animal welfare and nutrition [46]. To address this challenge, blockchain-based traceability can be extended to track
and trace sustainable product attributes – providing information to supply chain stakeholders about environmentally
friendly practices, social responsibility, economic profitability and nutrition facts.
There is increasing recognition of the potential of blockchain to inform and improve food supply chain
sustainability among scholars and practitioners [18–20,47–50]. These studies have identified the potential and
benefits of blockchain to sustainability, including (i) addressing illegality and exploitation of workers; (ii)
generating shared economic profitability, and (iii) reducing harmful environmental practices. Despite these potential
uses, blockchain technology has not yet been used to verify sustainability claims. Although there are numerous
frameworks for blockchain-based traceability of agri-food supply chains to improve food safety and operational
efficiency, to the best of our knowledge, only a few studies have explored proof of concepts or pilots for
demonstrating blockchain-enabled sustainability solutions in agri-food supply chains. Mangla et al. [51] designed a
blockchain-based supply chain sustainability framework for the tea supply chain. Bager et al. [52] developed and
tested a pilot case study for promoting coffee supply chain sustainability. Both studies focused on the three
mainstream pillars of sustainability – environment, economy and society – from a supply chain specific perspective
but did not account for emerging needs for nutritional sustainability [53]. This paper incorporates environmental,
social, economic and nutritional sustainability to propose a multi-layered architectural framework that advances the
understanding of blockchain’s applications for food supply chain sustainability and sustainability communication.

3. Towards a better way of sustainability communication with blockchain-based traceability

Food supply chains are a complex and dynamic system involving various processes and multiple actors in the
movement of foods from field to fork [54]. To simply represent the food supply chain structure without
compromising their generic processes, this study introduced the generalised production-distribution-consumption
cycle [55]. The production process involves production activities that source resources, process resources and
manufacture products. The distribution process refers to the transportation of products to the distributor’s warehouse
and to retail outlets/stores and/or food services. The consumption process includes product purchase and
consumption at home or outside in restaurants, pubs and other food outlets.
To demonstrate how blockchain-based traceability can be used for improved sustainability communication along
the food supply chain, this study proposed a blockchain-enabled architectural framework for sustainability
communication in the production-distribution-consumption cycle (see Fig. 1). The architectural framework consists
of multi-layers that elaborate how environment friendly practices, social responsibility, economic profitability and
nutrition facts can be immutably registered and securely stored on the blockchain network.
The actor layer engages with supply chain participants, including producers, processors, transporters, distributors,
retailers/food service providers and consumers, in the production-distribution-consumption cycle, who make, query
and check the sustainability claims about the food product. They are either the producer or the consumer of
sustainable food products and attached sustainability-related information. The actor layer interacts with the product
layer as supply chain actors participate in production, transportation, sales and purchase of the product.
The product layer involves handling the products – registration, processing, receival and purchase – at various
stages of the supply chain. It also involves attaching sustainability-related information, such as environment friendly
practices, corporate social responsibility, shared economic value (economic benefits to rural neighbourhoods) and
nutrition facts to the food product. Fig. 1 illustrates the different roles played by different supply chain actors when
claiming sustainability as the product moves through the chain. For example, the producer registers sustainable
products with data supporting their claims on environmental, social and economic sustainability (e.g. use of agro-
ecological farming methods that reduce chemical use; contribution of farming practices to biodiversity conservation;
fair wages for farm workers), as well as production quantity and date. The processor takes the responsibility of
updating the receival date, quantity, processing date and nutritional details of the product. The processor would also
calculate and update the product’s existing information with their own sustainability information, such as
greenhouse gas emissions from transporting the product from farm to processor. The distributor updates arrival date,
quantity, batch number and packaging after receiving the product, and adds further sustainability information (e.g.
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provenance and sustainability of packaging, emissions from transport between processor and distributor). The
retailer/food service provider adds information on the sales of sustainable products to the product, is provided with a
clear chain of evidence for sustainability claims and is able to confidently communicate this information with
consumers. The consumer purchases the sustainable product and verifies its sustainability credentials through the
use of a digital link to the blockchain information, e.g. a QR code.

Fig. 1. Multi-layer blockchain-enabled architectural framework for sustainability communication

The digital twin layer refers to the creation of a digital asset that is a virtual replica of a food product. The digital
asset represents the status updates of physical food products by recording all relevant sustainable attributes and
information throughout the journey of the product and thus can be called a digital twin of the physical product. The
status update of the product in the digital world can be realised by human input and the Internet of Things (IoT)
sensors. The categories of information in the product layers, include quantity, date, batch numbers and the
sustainable attributes pertaining to the four pillars of sustainability. Decentralised applications that record personal
or device identity can be developed to ensure accountability for matching digital and physical products.
The gateway/oracle layer connects blockchains to external systems for gathering sustainability-related data about
the product and situations and/or some form of exogenous evidence, e.g., a food sustainability certification or report,
or by an act of regulatory administration, e.g. food sustainability practices. It acts as a communicator between
blockchain and external data sources and enables data query, verification and authentication, usually via trusted
APIs, trustworthy data feeds and IoT feeds and also serves as a data source to relay the data and information to the
blockchain system [15]. The gateway/oracle layer was introduced to mitigate blockchain’s inability to ensure data
integrity at the register point [15,56,57]. If the user registers dishonest data on the blockchain, then it would
perpetuate through the chain and lead to false reporting of sustainability outcomes. Having a gateway/oracle layer
for data authentication helps build consumer trust and confidence. To ensure quality data ingested on the blockchain
network, it is necessary to develop infrastructure to ensure the integrity of data origin, the digital twin and oracle in
the gateway/oracle layer. Smart contracts could be incorporated to execute automatic integrity verification.
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The blockchain layer serves as a shared and distributed ledger/database spread across the multi-tier supply chain
to record and store sustainability-related data. The verified status update of the food product is uploaded to the
blockchain network at every stage in the production-distribution-consumption cycle and stored in chain-like blocks.
These data blocks are verified and updated by certain nodes based on an agreed-upon consensus procedure, such as
Proof-of-Work, Proof-of-stake and proof-of-authority [58,59], thereby ensuring on-chain data immutability and
security. The sustainability claims recorded on the blockchain network are transparent to supply chain stakeholders
and can be tracked, traced and verified by consumers empowered by blockchain-based traceability capability.
Permissioned blockchain could be adopted to meet the need for confidentiality and privacy protection.

4. Results and discussion

Though conceptual in nature, this study proposed a blockchain-enabled architectural framework for sustainability
communication that demonstrates how to utilise blockchain-based traceability to enhance the verification and
credibility of sustainability claims made on food products. Blockchain’s traceability characteristics, together with
three other critical attributes – transparency, verifiability and immutability – make it technically feasible to record
the transaction and flow of food products that are sustainably produced and sourced. The availability of traceable
and verifiable evidence can significantly enhance the reliability and trustworthiness of sustainable claims/credentials
compared to simple digital means of communication [17]. A growing body of studies have posited several benefits
of blockchain in terms of minimising unsustainable practices and fostering sustainable development [51,52].
However, most of them focused on theoretical and/or conceptual investigations, without exploring the ways in
which the value of blockchain technology can be unlocked for sustainability communication in food supply chains.
Extending these theoretical and/or conceptual studies, this study explored sustainability management and
communication aided by blockchain-based traceability capability, with an illustrative example.
The framework illustrated in Fig. 1 aims to improve sustainability communication with consumers and other
supply chain actors using blockchain technology. The multi-layered architecture is illustrated with examples,
showing how to implement this framework in a practical scenario. Given that consumers are conscious of
sustainable practices and are willing to pay a premium for sustainable food products [60], blockchain-enabled
sustainability communication could improve the economic profitability of sustainability efforts. In terms of
communicating sustainability with consumers, companies might use one-way messaging to inform sustainable food
choices, or more actively engage with consumers to embed their concerns and priorities in sustainability claims.
While this study proposed a blockchain-enabled architectural framework to apply blockchain-based traceability to
sustainability communication, several challenges and barriers to blockchain adoption remain to be solved, including
scalability, privacy concerns, high investment cost and digital inclusion/connectivity problems [49]. Some studies
[40] have developed low-cost blockchain solutions that justifies the application of our solution in a cost-effective
manner. Blockchain as a sustainable infrastructure is debated [61,62]. For example, because of the high energy
consumption by a blockchain network, blockchain is criticised for its negative environmental sustainability [61,63].
However, others have pointed out that, like any product or process, blockchain technology is not homogeneous,
blanket statements about energy consumption are inaccurate, and various methods are already available to reduce
blockchain energy consumption through reducing redundancy [64]. Although there are costs involved in setting up
and running a blockchain, faster transactions and the increased ability to verify, validate claims and enforce
commitments may enable gains in efficiency and lowering of costs for businesses [65]. The blockchain network is
taken as a distributed data store for sustainability-related data without proposing to use external data storage. Due to
limited storage capability on the blockchain network, such as Etherum and the consideration of transaction speed,
other external peer-to-peer storage networks, such as IPFS and Swarm, can be used for off-chain data storage [66].
Other decentralised cloud storage networks that accept consumer-grade computers or business-class servers for data
storage [33] would be another promising solution to address the data storage costs and performance.
Many proponents argue that blockchain can significantly advance the management and reporting of social,
economic and environmental sustainability thanks to its transparent and traceable characteristics [61]. A recent study
by Parmentola [62] analysed 195 studies of environmental sustainability that mentioned blockchain from 2015 to
2020 and concluded that blockchain could contribute to environmentally sustainable development goals, by
supporting the realization of a sustainable supply chain, improving energy efficiency and promoting the creation of
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Author name / Procedia Computer Science 00 (2022) 000–000 7

smart cities. Our study aligns with these studies and extends to demonstrate a framework from which sustainability
might be recorded, reported to supply chain actors and communicated to consumers.

5. Conclusion

This study explored blockchain-based traceability for food supply chain sustainability from the sustainability
communication perspective. The use of blockchain-based traceability for tracking and tracing sustainable claims can
enable producers and agribusinesses to communicate their sustainability commitments and credentials with
consumers in a trustworthy manner and inform consumers of the availability of sustainably produced food products.
To achieve this, a blockchain-enabled architectural framework was developed for sustainability communication. The
architectural framework outlines a multi-layer architecture for utilising blockchain-based traceability to create a
better way of sustainability communication with consumers and achieve economic profitability from their
sustainable efforts in the production-distribution-consumption cycle.
This study is an exploratory study identifying how to leverage blockchain-based traceability for sustainability
communication and therefore leave vast rooms for future research. Further research is required on the types of food
products that could use blockchain technology to verify claims. Premium products that involve some level of
processing would be a useful category of food product to focus on for deploying blockchain technologies. This is
because their supply chain is less complex than a raw commodity and a premium product would be appealing to
consumers already willing to pay more for particular attributes. Additionally, more empirical investigations of
consumers’ attitudes and acceptance of blockchain-enabled sustainability communication for food products are
needed. Early research [67] indicates that consumers intend to pay a premium for blockchain-credentialed beef
products. However, no research has been conducted to investigate consumers’ purchasing attitude and willingness to
pay for blockchain-enabled sustainability communication. Finally, future research should consider the development
of appropriate data governance architectures and build them into proof-of-concept prototypes to demonstrate its
technical feasibility and commercial viability, which is one of critical factors for enterprise adoption and uptake.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Queensland University of Technology (QUT)’s Centre for Agriculture and the
Bioeconomy (CAB) under the Future Leaders Funding Opportunity 2021 for supporting this study, which is partial
results of the “Exploring blockchain-based traceability for a sustainable agri-food system” project (2021-22). AITT
was supported by an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT210100655).
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