Working with the Israeli Cotton Board, leading technology firm Security Matters continues to break new ground in sustainable cotton production.

For market-leading product authentication platform Security Matters (ASX:SMX), the fashion and textiles industry is a great example of a sector where its technology is being deployed to solve key problems.

And on that front, the company has achieved some exciting new breakthroughs in the development of its product-tracing solution for the fast-growing organic cotton industry.

Partnering with the Israeli Cotton Board (ICB) and its organic cotton growers in Israel, SMX successfully deployed its technology to mark cotton plants at the seed-stage.

Those seeds have now been successfully grown into healthy plants which are generating flowers, in what marks an important new validation of the company’s adaptable platform.

This farming update is a by-product of SMX’s partnership with the Israeli Cotton Board (ICB), as part of a project to deploy the company’s technology in order to verify that all cotton sourced from Israel meets minimum standards of quality, ESG requirements and sustainability.

Yizhar Landau, the CEO of ICB explained to Stockhead that, “Traceability and transparency of the organic cotton and conventional cotton supply chain is critical to the Israeli Cotton Board (ICB), as it not only enables accurate verification, certification of the origination where the organic cotton is grown, but also enables the full traceability of the organic cotton fibres, from farm to final cotton products and garments for our buyers and their customers.”

He went on to share that, SMX “provided our cotton growers with an innovative technology that is an efficient drop in solution, that will enable them to provide accurate proof of origination of their organic cotton beyond the paper certification to our buyers.

“The SMX markers are also sensitive to any dilution or substitution of our cotton, protecting ICB organic cotton’s integrity and authenticity.  Thus, giving an additional layer of protection and assurance of quality to our buyers.”

Landau continued to explain that given, SMX’s global digital blockchain platform is easily accessible to all parties and stakeholders along the organic cotton value chain.   

“We believe that SMX could be the most effective and efficient solution for traceability, authentication, verification, and certification of origination not just for ICB’s organic and conventional cotton growers but also for the entire global organic cotton industry and community,” Landau said.

Speaking with Stockhead, SMX CEO Haggai Alon discussed another feature of the technology that is critical for the fashion sector to transition to a sustainable circular economy and reduce fabric waste.

“The technological offering provided by SMX is a complete farm to final product to recycling and reuse solution,” he said.

“It is the only solution that can tangibly track the actual raw material itself from its source through the supply chain in the textile and apparel industry; as well as identify the origination and exact composition of the garment at its end-of-life for recycling and reuse.

“Cotton is a renewable natural resource and with the SMX technology, we will enable fashion and textile brands to practise sustainable circularity with their end-of-life cotton products.”

And it demonstrates the capacity for SMX’s product-tracing solution to be rolled out across the global fashion manufacturing industry.

“Today, we have a ready, easy to implement scalable solution that can easily detect the origination and traceability data embedded in the cotton by SMX’s proprietary reader within seconds, without having to undergo extensive lab tests,” Alon said.

Global opportunity

Looking ahead, Alon said the ability of SMX’s technology to track garment inputs across the production cycle opens up a number of market opportunities in the global apparel sector.

“The SMX solution and global digital platform have been proven and tested.  It is able to integrate multi-player and multi-stakeholders along the organic cotton’s value chain and enable companies to authenticate the organic cotton, certify its origination and monitor their value chains with full transparency and visibility.

“As well as provide them with the additional ability to transition successfully to a sustainable circular economy reducing the amount of waste generated from discarded cotton products.”

Together with the ICB, SMX plans to establish an authorised cotton board with a commercial team that will work with brands directly to source organic cotton materials.

“We’re already talking to leading brands and they are giving us feedback in terms of how it will best serve them,” Alon said.

“The goal is to create a direct bridge between grower brands and the client, with no dependency on any intermediates in the production process.”

In that context, SMX’s technology is set to play a key role in offering a practical sustainable solution for what is one of the world’s largest production industries.

“For apparel brands today, sustainability is central to what they do,” Alon said.

“This is about creating a fully validated product with complete visibility and transparency all the way back to the environment in which cotton was grown and processed.

“So in terms of the rollout, we’re a direct link to the brands. And what ICB brings to table is an ability to assist with the efficient and quick deployment of our technology with growers of cotton all over the world.”

This article was developed in collaboration with Security Matters, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.

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