Collaboration Between Levi Strauss And Harvard To Develop Factory Safety System

By Rishma Banerjee

As Reuters reported, today on 24th January, a collaboration has been announced between Harvard University and American clothing company Levi Strauss & Co in order to develop a blockchain factory safety system,

This new system primarily aims to eventually replace external factory health and safety auditors with a self-reporting infrastructure by the workers.

Dr. Eileen McNeely, director of Harvard T.H. Chan’s Sustainability and Health Initiative for NetPositive Enterprise said,

“For the last 25 years, work in supply chains has been monitored mainly by audits… A distributed system of inquiry on the blockchain that goes right to the source offers a new solution.”

The first to use and test out the system will be three of Levi Strauss’ factories located in Mexico which as of now employ 5,000 workers. Another pilot has been planned for the next year. The system will put an annual safety survey on a blockchain.

The survey will reportedly use an index developed by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Allison Price, executive director of Blockchain Trust Accelerator at New America, was of the opinion that putting the survey result on a blockchain will means that “the results will never be manipulated.”

According to the reports that have been published, the blockchain will be allegedly provided by ConsenSys, the blockchain company founded by Joseph Lubin, who is  one of Ethereum’s (ETH) original authors Reuters reports indicate that the development of the system is funded through a grant from the United States State Department.

As BTC Wires had recently reported, recent layoffs at Consensys affected around 10 percent of its staff, including employees both in support and technical roles. Last December, there were reports which said that the company had plans to lay off anywhere between 50 and 60 percent of its employees.

Rishma Banerjee

Rishma is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and has a special place in her life for sifting through all sorts of random trivia, thank you very much.