Sumitomo Corporation has concluded a global exclusive distribution agreement in the non-ferrous metals field with Security Matters, an Israeli start-up company with proprietary technology that can put specific markers on materials at the molecular level.

Through sales and marketing of the company's products, which can track raw materials and products along the supply chain, Sumitomo Corporation will contribute to supply chain transparency and the realization of a recycling-oriented society.

Companies Increasingly Move Toward Sustainable Procurement and Supply Chain Transparency

In recent years, the world has become increasingly aware of the need for 'sustainable procurement of raw materials. Companies need to procure raw materials to make their products, and this process can create not only quality shortages but also various environmental and social challenges, such as resource depletion, child labor, and land overexploitation. The failure to address those challenges in the supply chain also poses the risk of damaging corporate value.

Under these circumstances, there is a growing trend around the world to emphasize product traceability (tracking of production history) and to make supply chains more visible and transparent. This visualization of production history enables us to prove that procured products are environmentally and socially conscious, to provide safe and secure products to customers, and to disclose more accurate information to stakeholders.

SMX's Proprietary Technology Deals with the Supply Chain of Metal Resources

SMX is a startup founded in Israel in 2015 with a revolutionary technology that enables centralized management of information throughout the supply chain by assigning individual IDs to substances and managing them on a blockchain. Because of their unique patents that allow them to assign a marker to a substance at the molecular level, they can handle all substances, regardless of their state (gas, liquid, or solid). In addition, there is no falsification of information by third parties with the use of blockchain.

In the midst of the demand for supply chain transparency, it has been said that it is difficult to accurately grasp and manage the movement of raw materials because the shape of metal resources changes in the process of productization. However, by using SMX technology, which can be applied at the molecular level, it is possible to make the supply chain of metal resources transparent because the markers can function even if the shape of the material changes through processing. Even though the production process of metal resources involves the risk of human rights issues for miners and environmental impacts due to overexploitation, it is possible to identify and prove the source of raw materials and sell safer and more competitive products to customers by using SMX products.

Contributing to the Realization of a Sustainable Society through Collaboration with SMX

Sumitomo Corporation has concluded an exclusive agency agreement with SMX in the field of non-ferrous metals and will conduct sales and marketing of the company's products. Specifically, we will develop our business in which the production process in the supply chain is monitored and managed by marking ores and products used as raw materials for non-ferrous metals with SMX products. In addition to being a distributor of SMX products, we will also apply SMX technology to the metal resources we handle, such as traceability of nickel and cobalt used in battery metal for EVs and visualization of scrap ratios in copper, in order to differentiate our products, thereby improving the profitability and competitiveness of our business.

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