31 July 2018

WWF-AUSTRALIA PANDA LABS WINS PRESTIGIOUS INNOVATION PRIZE

WWF-Australia has been named as one of Australian Financial Review’s Most Innovative Companies for its approach to innovation and project to develop a blockchain-based tool that can track tuna from when they are caught, all the way to dinner plates.

WWF-Australia was awarded Best Corporate Social Responsibility / Social Innovation out of a field of more than 1,000 organisations across Australian and New Zealand companies.

“We created this new blockchain tool as part of WWF-Australia’s Panda Labs innovation program, which is developing new, innovative approaches to problem solving that can be scaled globally,” said WWF-Australia CEO Dermot O’Gorman.

“Panda Labs was launched last year as part of WWF-Australia’s commitment to innovation to harness emerging technologies and accelerate innovative solutions to global problems.”

In a world first, WWF offices in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific worked with a variety of sectors to use blockchain to successfully track tuna through the food supply chain from when it was caught in Fiji until its final destination as sushi on dinner plates in New York.

“We wanted to test the theory that blockchain can help to make the tuna supply chain more transparent, protect global fisheries and reduce worker exploitation. With a simple scan using their smartphones, diners in New York have been able to see when and where their tuna was caught, and even how it was shipped to their restaurant via FedEx,” said WWF-New Zealand CEO Livia Esterhazy.

The blockchain tool was created in partnership with the tuna company Sea Quest Fiji and tech companies ConsenSys’ Viant and TraSeable, which worked with the WWF teams in Australia, Fiji and New Zealand.

“We are excited that the judges of this award saw the potential of our project to revolutionise food supply chains across the world,” Mr O’Gorman said.

Through Panda Labs, WWF is partnering with tech partners, food producers and retailers to cement the use of blockchain across multiple industries and sectors in Australia and across the world.