LogLog: A Blockchain Solution for Tracking and Certifying Wood Volumes

Abstract

When it comes to sustainability, many certification systems live and die by their capacity to track a volume from source to destination. This is because customers (and consequently, auditors) are increasingly concerned with where products are sourced ("Are these local materials?") and what is their environmental impact is ("How much CO2 did this generate?"). The Forest Sustainability Council (FSC) created various frameworks to meet these demands. The FSC is responsible for tracking and labelling all the wood volumes that its members use. Though widely respected, their certifications rely on trusted third parties and extensive record keeping. Thus, they do not efficiently address problems like bribery and "creative" inventory practices.Blockchain technology is an attractive solution because it increases traceability, auditability and access to information. However, blockchain systems have limitations. Notably, they are inefficient for storing large amounts of data. The standard workaround is to use a multiple-database approach where large files are kept off-chain, creating a trade-off between lower transaction fees and lower availability, among other factors.In contrast with these approaches, we propose LogLog: an entirely on-chain system for tracking wood volumes throughout a supply chain and enforcing FSC certification standards. LogLog is ERC-1155 compliant and meets the base requirements for a forestry supply chain.We created two reference implementations of our design using Solidity and deployed them over the Ethereum blockchain. Our evaluation uses realistic parameters and suggests our prototype is a viable alternative to current multiple-database systems in contexts where data integrity is a strict requirement.