How transparent is that cloth?

The wool in your sweater, the lithium in your mobile, the paper in the book you just purchased, they all have a history tracing them back to their origins. How much water, energy or minerals did they consume?

Companies are now showcasing this history to show they are serious about sustainability! ‘Supply chain transparency’ is the latest in the game. It requires companies to understand and provide details of their entire supply chains.

A British company called Historic Futures that specializes in traceability, tracks such commodities as cotton and gold through the supply chains of Wal-Mart, Gap and Patagonia, etc using Internet-based systems and RFID tags.

Icebreaker is a company that makes clothing from New Zealand merino wool and invites customers to trace their garments back to the farmers who raised the sheep that made it using a Baacode! Your Baacode will let you see the living conditions of the high country sheep that produced the merino fibre in your Icebreaker garment, meet the farmers who are custodians of this astonishing landscape, and follow every step of the supply chain.

Wal-Mart's "Love, Earth" brand of gold and silver jewelry invites consumers to visit a website to find the source of their precious metals and to be assured that it's not a dirty mine in a poor country.

Patagonia's "Footprint Chronicles" website tracks the journey of a T-shirt through the global economy, revealing its carbon footprint, water usage and miles traveled.

The wood that went to make your furniture – was it the consequence of illegal logging in a forest or from a plantation?

Wal-Mart and Tesco have vowed not to buy clothing made with cotton farmed in Uzbekhistan, where child labor is rampant, requiring them to ask all their suppliers to know where their cotton is sourced.

For sure this move will help when the consumer is sensitive to the issues at hand. Not otherwise. It could well end as an interesting gimmick or fad to catch the consumer’s attention.

Would it make a difference to YOU if you knew where your stuff came from? Let us know.