Marc Naidoo Pens Article on Digital Supply Chains and Accountability

January 20, 2022

McGuireWoods London partner Marc Naidoo recently wrote an article for Global Banking & Finance Review on how consumers could use technology to ensure use of sustainable practices in production and all along the supply chain.

In the article, Naidoo highlighted how technology can connect all parties in an economic ecosystem and create responsibility across the supply chain. He said the only way to ensure sustainability is to apply pressure to the bottom line.

Naidoo suggested that a possible solution is using blockchain technology to monitor the journey of goods from source to end consumer. Instead of relying on companies to say a product was produced sustainably, consumers can track how the product is transported along the supply chain to determine whether the product was manufactured using forced labor or transported via methods that produce high emissions.

“A move to digital supply chains would ensure that the endorsements and grading given to goods actually mean something to end consumers, and there would actually be accountability throughout a supply chain,” Naidoo wrote.

Naidoo, a debt finance partner, is a member of the five-person executive committee leading McGuireWoods’ ESG task force.