Proof Points

A technology developed by Provenance to help businesses communicate with integrity.

Proof Points enable businesses (of any size and location) to prove a statement of impact in a way that has integrity and can easily be shared with buyers and shoppers. A Proof Point can be linked to a business (including brands or facilities) or a product (including ingredients or packaging). They enable a consistent, comparable information presentation with robust, multi-layered evidence that’s tamperproof, timestamped, and easy to validate.

Example

Anna is a farmer. She farms using organic production methods and she wants to communicate this to her customers. One approach she might take is simply to tell her customers about her organic practices, but this requires customers to put a lot of trust in Anna. Customers don't have any assurance that Anna is telling the truth.

For this reason, certification bodies exist. Anna can apply to a trusted body for a certificate of organic production. After a thorough inspection by an expert, the certification body issues Anna with a paper certificate, proving that she uses organic production methods. At the same time Anna is licensed to use the logo of the certification body on her product packaging. This system requires customers to trust Anna less, but it's still possible for Anna to use the logo on her packaging without being in possession of a valid certificate.

If Anna wants to give her customers true assurance that she is the holder of an organic production certificate then she could use a Proof Point. When the certification body presents Anna with her paper certificate it can also present her with a Proof Point. Just like the paper certificate, the Proof Point is a digital signed statement by the certification body that Anna's farm has been inspected and has met the requirements for the certificate.

Just like the logo, the Proof Point can be attached to packaging (via a QR code), presented on Anna's website, along with being hosted on her Provenance profile. However, unlike the logo, wherever the Proof Point is presented it can be independently authenticated without the customer having to trust either Anna or Provenance.

Moreover, if the certification body later discovers that Anna is no longer eligible for the certificate it has the ability to revoke the Proof Point. This will invalidate all the copies of the Proof Point in existence, for example on Anna's packaged products that are already on store shelves.

The Proof Point is a direct message from the certification body to the shopper, that is not mediated and cannot be tampered with by anyone else.

Why Proof Points?

98% of consumers say brands have a responsibility to make positive change in the world, but with the rise of ‘purpose washing and greenwashing’ how can businesses who are committed to positive impact prove that to buyers and shoppers?

Working in consumer goods supply chains, Provenance saw the huge importance of verifiers (machine or human). Without verifiers, claims about social and environmental impact - from people’s working conditions to the carbon footprint involved - don’t stand up to scrutiny. There is a lack of accessible, trustworthy information, and no consistent, digital sharing or communication methods.

Proof Points is the beginning of meeting this vital need. Anyone in the world can create a Proof Point and anyone finding a Proof Point can easily check who it was created by and whether it has been revoked. You don't need an account on the Provenance Platform to use the system, but today this is the simplest way to use the system.