Hyperledger Foundation Hyperledger Global Forum 2021, 11 Jun 2021

Previous Meeting Next Meeting

⏯

youtube image

►

From YouTube: Estainium: To Net Zero with Verifiable Credentials - Andreas Kind, Siemens

Description

Estainium: To Net Zero with Verifiable Credentials - Andreas Kind, Siemens

Verifiable credentials as promoted by the W3C as well as the Hyperledger projects Indy and Aries can give individuals control of their identity attributes in a privacy-preserving manner. Estainium, an association of manufacturers and trusted technical inspection organizations, extends the use of verifiable credentials for sharing product-level information in supply chains, specifically for letting suppliers cryptographically prove product carbon footprints (PCFs) down-stream while preserving common supply chain confidentiality assumptions. The aim of this PCF sharing infrastructure is to drive production towards trustworthy net zero carbon emission.

Sessions Details & Slides (if available)- https://sched.co/jcqT
Access All Sessions: https://events.linuxfoundation.org/hyperledger-global-forum/program/schedule/

----
Hyperledger – Open Source Blockchain Technologies

Hyperledger is an open source community focused on developing a suite of stable frameworks, tools and libraries for enterprise-grade blockchain deployments.
It serves as a neutral home for various distributed ledger frameworks including Hyperledger Besu, Fabric, Sawtooth, Indy, as well as tools like Hyperledger Avalon, Cactus and libraries like Hyperledger Aries, Ursa. Learn more about Hyperledger projects: https://www.hyperledger.org/use

Case Studies: https://www.hyperledger.org/learn/case-studies
Training & Certification: https://www.hyperledger.org/learn/training
Tutorials: https://www.hyperledger.org/use/tutorials
Webinars: https://www.hyperledger.org/learn/webinars
Events: https://www.hyperledger.org/events
Vendor Directory: https://www.hyperledger.org/use/vendor-directory

Subscribe to the Hyperledger Newsletter: https://www.hyperledger.org/newsletter

Follow-us on Twitter @Hyperledger

Learn about Hyperledger Membership: https://www.hyperledger.org/about/join

A

Okay, welcome to the session on estanium uh two net, zero with verifiable credentials. um It's a interesting combination of uh two topics, a very fiber credential. I think it's a pretty known concept in this kind of community appalachia in the hyperledger areas are the uh sort of known stacks in this space and that zero refers to carbon emissions sustainability. So, let's see I want to to tell the story actually from uh siemens side.

A

I'm I work for siemens and um uh what you see here is as a factory as a siemens factory, it's one of the sort of factories in a global network that was actually uh called the lighthouse network of global factories by the world economic forum.

A

It's a factory uh that produces roughly one uh product per second, so it has a very high uh and for many many years factories of this kind of scale. This kind of automation uh had always the the challenge of being efficient um of uh optimizing of of being more and more automated and there's now a new kind of challenge, and it's a actually a big challenge. It's a it's! A huge challenge uh around carbon pricing.

A

Carbon pricing is a concept that tries to move to shift the burden uh from the global warming to those who can actually change it to those who who cause it also- and this goes to factory factories like these, of course, not only siemens factories, but many other factories in the world too.

A

So for us, it's uh a key product like this. uh It's a programmable controller which is produced there. As I said, every second and the key question is really: what is the carbon footprint of this device?

A

uh How is it composed and how potentially, can I change as a manufacturer, also um the the actual footprint and then, of course, the price, because if we really go into an area where carbon is priced much more heavily than today, the price or the cost of the product will be affected by this footprint, and this kind of question came up inside of siemens, but it applies in the same way to a manufacturer of an iphone or a phone.

A

A mobile phone to a manufacturer of some sneakers or to a car manufacturer in all these cases is always the same question. What is the carbon footprint and to make it a bit more specific? There are actually different scopes uh when computing a product, carbon footprint, there's the scope, one which relates to the emissions that are locally happening in a factory, so this is uh normally quite known to a manufacturer.

A

Also, scope. 2 is quite known. It's the electricity bill, so the very uh sort of straightforward, the bill that that a factory receives, um but actually the challenge is to map uh the the values that people or the data that people and manufacturers have on on that site, scale down to the actual products.

A

That's not straightforward, because you have variations in the type in the kind of energy consumption you have periods where there is a higher consumption of energy. Maybe in the summer, when you have um the air condition more running, uh and how do you then map it actually in a way to your product that it's also understandable you have to average in a certain way you have to aggregate, but much more difficult is actually the scope 3 upstream.

A

So the part of the aggregation of scope, one and scoop scope, two from all the suppliers and uh that's uh complicated, because we live in an area where supply chains are very complex. They are typically global, so the sourcing happens not just locally, but it happens really across the world and it changes quite frequently so knowing for one particular product with multiple sourcing channels for a single component, exactly what is now the protocarbon footprint of a component is not really involves a tight uh connection to the suppliers.

A

Key question is also: how can you uh request this data in a trustful manner? So how can you, basically, uh when you receive a protocol footprint about the components that go into a product such that you can actually trust it and then shift potentially to a different sourcing and then the very right hand side how you then share your own kind of product carbon footprint with the next uh manufacturer in in the chain or basically with your customer?

A

So these are the the key questions and we believe verifiable credentials can can play a role here. It's um a little bit different role than traditionally, where verifiable credentials are used with individuals to use a selected set of uh identity, attributes share them in a privacy, preserving and sort of self-serving manner. Here, in the context, we talk about products, we talk about companies, so it's a slight different angle and the scope 3.

A

What I mentioned before is actually very important, because 80 percent of the co2 emissions of products in general uh come from the upstream scope 3.. So that's where the biggest problem is within the open within the uh the own context of the manufacturing that's possible to handle that's in the domain of a manufacturer.

A

It's not straightforward, but it's much easier because it doesn't involve so many other parties. So, in this context, in this chart here you see the um the footprint of a typical product. uh It goes uh quite some steps uh and there is confidentiality involved.

A

So the way uh the logistics set up by the the suppliers is confidential to the suppliers. They would not want to share it because it's also their differentiation, the same about the components of the parts that the manufacturers manufacture.

A

This is also confidential and should not be disclosed in the same way as the manufacturer doesn't want to disclose the suppliers and the components um that that the manufacturer itself uses so there's uh there are um confidentiality requirements with people, you would say privacy requirements. Here we talk about companies, so it's it's more like around confidentiality and an important part is also to integrate the aspect of recycling and the aspect of offsetting.

A

You might have heard in co2 decarbonization.

A

Efforts, it's very often that companies try to not really reduce their emissions or their uh energy consumption um or change their sourcing, but they're basically try to offset by buying co2 certificates, and this could be related to um helping to grow a forest to do some other means of co2 negative efforts, um but unfortunately there's a lot of uh dodgy things happen.

A

So this kind of uh integration of things important thing to bring in here and in all these cases it has to do with trust and the concept of verifiable credentials is exactly for doing this. You typically have this these three roles of an issuer, a holder and a verifier.

A

Sometimes the subject is the holder itself, but in our case the subject is actually a product. In our case, it's uh um what is called a zimatik s7 1500, an issuer in our uh setup. Here is a technical inspection company. Here in germany, you, you have um them typically referred as toof, I think, even outside of germany.

A

This term is quite known, uh but in every country you have these technical inspection companies uh that are quite uh familiar with certain domains so for ease, since they will be used uh for certain certification of processes um in in any kind of industry they are used um and we believe they can play an important role here for bringing the trust into the system.

A

The system cannot work by simply self declaring that a manufacturer says: uh okay, my product has this kind of protocarbon footprint or what is also very typical today um that.

A

So-Called life cycle assessment databases are used where for a product you basically go into a database, you look it up and you you get a carbon footprint value. uh This is a generalization. It doesn't really help to uh move forward with decarbonization, because it's always the same value. It won't change if anything in the supply chain is, is changed.

A

So the idea is here to use the role of the technical inspection companies as the issuer of verifiable credentials that the issuer has insight into the factory.

A

It knows about the specific way of measuring energy, maybe even on the factory floor. That knows about the emissions as well, and it knows also about uh the bill of material, the bill of processes uh that are uh being used uh with the product and it can reach out to the supplier or it can get the data that the holder would request from a supplier.

A

In this case, it's always a direct relationship, so the holder as a direct relationship with the supplier and would expect to receive some information, preferably in the format of a presentation of a verifiable presentation of again verifiable credentials that have been issued with the supplier. In the step before such that, uh the issuer can then really have the trust not only based on uh assumptions with respect to the supplier, but uh information coming in a verifiable way through credentials, and this requires again an issuer.

A

Of course it has to be different, or it's very typically than a different issuer. Otherwise it could be collusion such that we believe there's a chain of issuers holders and verifiers verifiers that can stretch across the supply chain.

A

So underlying is the typical verifiable data registry that that helps to give everybody access to the public dids. The uh the identities basically of the holder would not be registered here, because for the next step, the holder uh should be not known by the real identity for the end verifier. So this is exactly the confidentiality.

A

The direct relationship also exists between the holder uh and the verifier. Typically, the the customer that would request uh for a particular product to to issue uh information in the data registry. Important is also to have the credential schema and the revocation list. By no means there should be any real pcf data. So that's also important. We have these one-to-one relationships typically established through pairwise pseudonyms that help to potentially also anonymize the the identity of some of the parties.

A

With every bill we have claims associated, there would be two different types of claims so for the verifiable credential that is issued by the certifier, so the the issuer in this. So the certified that place the issuer role or is the technical inspection company the claim would relate to a product. In this case it's the s7 1500.

A

There would be two values for scope, 1, scope, 2..

A

You could think of it also as one value for both scope, 1 and scope 2, and there would be more information related to the components here just shown as one component as an example, which has a manufacturer and a unit, it's important to specify the unit the amount of these components within the product as well, because the multiplication has to done has to be done based on the information.

A

Coming then, uh with a presentation from the supplier- and here we see already that there is potentially the need for bringing in an anonymized information with respect to the component. That is part of the component one, so the component two is part of component one. Also, the name of the supplier should not necessarily be revealed. So that's the claim that is passed on to the supplier.

A

There may be different kind of variations. uh How this can be exactly implemented. It depends on the trust assumptions uh between the different parties, but the basic flow would be that a customer would re would send a request to a manufacturer uh expecting uh there is uh either already information available or uh the manufacturer would have to send out.

A

Likewise, a request to a supplier, a tier one supplier and the respective t1 supplier, if necessary, would send again a request to the next supplier in certain cases, and you will see it in the short demo that I have also here.

A

This won't go to the very end of the supply chain. There could be cases where a supplier has not the means to reach out to the next level. In this case, it would be possible to do some form of self-declaration again being potentially certified by a technical inspection company um and the actual value that the advocate value. That goes back. Then, to the customer would have a different quality than if everything would be really based on the certification.

A

So just this just to let you know that this is uh considered in the system that we have different uh of um authenticity and different levels of quality in the system. But the actual uh flow is then coming from uh the uh left-hand side of the supply chain from the tier two tier one and the uh towards the manufacturer and the customer, always in in pair so there's a there's, a issuing of a verifiable credential from a certified to a supplier to a supplier. Again, of course, a manufacturer.

A

Then a presentation of selected information that didn't doesn't necessarily have to be, or can be the full information that um this the certifier issued in the in the credential um and um indie uh provides this or the concept of verifiable credential provides this where multiple credentials can be combined in a presentation can be combined um ways of selectively taking information, also taking also only a range of the values.

A

So there's uh the crypto scheme of zero knowledge proofs also uh available, uh so that not the full information that is issued through the verifiable credential has to be presented to the next um to the next player in the in the supply chain um and then again from tier one supplier. There would be a presentation to the manufacturer again an issuing from the certifier that is in the same trust domain as a manufacturer and then eventually a presentation to the end customer.

A

There is an optional extension here that the suppliers anonymously present. Certain information, also to the end customer think about um an auditing kind of situation where you might want to have at the customer in quotes here. So talking about the um the auditor as a customer would have the need to see more information directly coming from the parties in this in the supply chain.

A

We think it's. The entire concept has two two sides to it. uh So there's um a part where we have the actual network with it. This must be an open network where other people can join in uh there are there's need for agreeing on standards uh on things like the quality. What I mentioned, it's not enough just to point the greenhouse gas protocol.

A

It is still too broad. uh There's. There's need also to agree on how you exactly map values down to the um the actual product level, and then there will be connectors to the network, and here you see an example of such a connector, where we believe different industries would come up with their own kind of connectors with different kind of requirements.

A

Okay, so I wanted to give very briefly a demo. I believe I have to do it very quickly because uh we're almost at the end of the time. uh So let me just jump um to a very. I think. It's it's not more than uh 30 seconds uh to uh to show you how this looks like so this is. This is an instance of such a such a connector uh where there's a dashboard you log in as in this case, uh as a manufacturer, you have your overview of the factory.

A

You could see all kinds of statistics uh with your emissions um and then you have requests coming in from from a supplier to share data, and this uh relates to a base housing uh where we seem to have enough data ourselves. So we send a request to our supplier uh called reese.

A

So here the view from the supplier in the same tool where the request comes in there is the possibility to enter data through an lca database, there's a possibility to type in the data manually based on the available information at hand, but there could be also a possibility, then, to reach out to actually the next um part in in the in the supply chain, uh which uh yeah would be basically the same kind of request coming into the system and so on.

A

uh Here you see the quality values as well. That addresses how information is provided database. Is it actually by multiple steps in the supply chain and so on.

A

So this I uh probably stopped my presentation and and see if you have any kind of questions- and I look here in the questions uh is asking estenian because of estonia. um Now it's the uh the name stanium comes from is derived actually from the project name that we had. It was called sustainium inside of siemens, but externally we wanted to find a name that relates to uh sustainability uh and in environment.

A

So that's the combination of the e and the stanium. uh It's a bit like a um artificial name, but it has nothing to do with the country. Estonia.

A

Any other questions.

A

Okay, I see two more questions coming in which other companies are participating in this network. We are currently looking for interested parties to launch the association and we believe we are quite interesting initial founding members here. I cannot disclose them at that point, but that's important that we have a balanced mix of parties being involved here. This should not be dominated by any kind of small circle or even a single company. The way information is shared here, how the network is run.

A

What is the agreement on the layer on top of indian areas? It should be really come up by this by this uh association.

A

Another question: are you working with bosch on the agents in the process? uh Bc? Gov is working on a similar project. Okay, now you have to help him with bc. Golf bosch we're in discussions. Yeah. um There are discussions with bosch. We any uh on multiple projects actually uh with wash um on uh yeah, also on um yeah, very similar topics. So I probably can't talk too much in this round here: okay, yeah yeah, busy cup there's some momentum.

A

Okay, thanks for the information uh happy to follow up on this stephen um just ping me british columbia, yeah got it.

A

Okay, any more question I think we're actually over time already, but maybe one last one. Otherwise I guess we would have to close.

A

Good then, thanks a lot to all of you, please ping me! Please come back to me if you're interested, we have two more presentations tomorrow on the panel there's a a sustainability panel. um um Well my morning would be a different time in the u.s in other time zones. Of course um please join. Then we have a presentation also on verifiable credentials for asset management, uh quite interesting um and finally, on the id union project. It's a large association european driven many use cases uh very exciting, also on around verifiable credentials with this.

A

Okay, thanks a lot for your attention and take care bye.