Proof of Sustainability of Clothing in the Fashion Industry Using Blockchain

The fashion supply chain faces significant challenges in achieving transparency, traceability, and more importantly, verification of sustainability claims and practices. This paper shows how blockchain, as an enabling technology, can facilitate and provide a proof of sustainability of clothing items by enabling end-to-end traceability and visibility in the key stages of clothing production, distribution, and sales. Our solution employs a smart contract that automates the management and recording of the sustainability certification process and securely records all key actions on an immutable ledger, ensuring trusted traceability and transparency. The paper outlines the system architecture and implementation of the smart contract, including its underlying algorithms, and validates its functionality through rigorous testing. Security and cost analyses demonstrate that the approach is robust and economically viable. A comparative analysis with existing blockchain-based solutions highlights the unique contributions of our framework. This work demonstrates the potential of blockchain to transform and automate sustainable practices management, mitigate greenwashing, and enhance accountability and transparency in fashion supply chains.