This week, Jaguar Land Rover’s venture capital arm InMotion said it invested in U.K. blockchain startup Circulor. The aim is to trace raw materials through the supply chain to ensure sustainability. The solution uses a combination of blockchain, GPS, biometrics and QR codes.
The deal represents at least the third major auto company to work with Circulor. Last year it helped Volvo track recycled cobalt used in new cars, followed by an investment from the car company in the middle of this year.
And at the start of the year, Mercedes said it was working with Circulor on a pilot to track CO2 emissions from its electric vehicles. That’s an area Volvo is also looking to explore.
In addition to tracing minerals and C02 emissions, Circulor’s third interest area is chemical recycling of plastics.
Meanwhile, Sebastian Peck, Managing Director of InMotion Ventures said, “This investment is further evidence of Jaguar Land Rover’s commitment to improving the sustainability of its supply chain around the globe, and will help authentically trace raw materials from origin to supplier, eventually to vehicle.”
Peck continued, “The implementation of blockchain technology provides a great opportunity to make a systemic change in supply chain compliance, not just for the automotive world but for other industries, too.”
Circulor’s blockchain solution uses Hyperledger Fabric.
Jaguar Land Rover has some distributed ledger technology (DLT) experience, but a fair bit of that has been with IOTA. Early last year, the car firm disclosed it was exploring IOTA based wallets for payments such as road tolls. More recently, it has been leveraging IOTA to trial an access control solution. In other words, if someone wanted a short term car hire, the DLT could be used to let them into the car. Advantages include there is no single honeypot of data to hack and a DLT provides resiliency.
