Digital Traceability of Timber Supply Chains
Sector: Primary sector · Industry: Forestry · Organisation: Forst-Holz-BlockChain (Uni Freiburg) · Maturity level: Pilot
The Forst-Holz-BlockChain project at the University of Freiburg digitizes the process chain from timber harvesting to mill delivery using blockchain technology. It records data seamlessly, immutably, and in a decentralized manner to ensure transparency and traceability across the forestry-timber supply chain. A minimum viable product demonstrates the practical functionality of the approach.
Documentation status
- Project status: Pilot
- Evidence: Evidence high
- Editorial review: Ufuk Avci, 12 July 2026
Description
Blockchain technology enables the seamless and immutable recording of all relevant data along the timber supply chain – from harvesting in the forest to delivery at the sawmill or another processing facility. Every step, such as felling, skidding, storing, and transporting timber, is digitally logged and made comprehensible to all authorised participants. The research project at the University of Freiburg develops and tests this approach in practice and is funded with EU funds from the EFRE-HIP programme.
The timber supply chain is traditionally characterised by many independent actors who often manage data on different, unconnected systems, leading to a lack of transparency, disputes over quantities and qualities, and a complex certification process. The Forst-Holz-BlockChain project at Albert Ludwig University Freiburg addresses these issues by building a decentralized blockchain infrastructure that digitally and tamper-proof records all process steps from felling to factory delivery. A predecessor project within HoBeOpt (2019–2022) already demonstrated a pilot scenario where blockchain was used to identify deviations in timber quantities, solving a concrete practical problem. The current follow-up project, funded by EFRE-HIP from 2023 to 2025, aims to further validate and refine the functionality through a prototype. In the long term, the solution is intended to help build trust between forestry operations, traders, and factories, simplify certification processes, and standardise digital data exchange in the industry.
Perspectives
B2B — organisations perspective
For companies in the forestry and timber industry, blockchain-based supply chain tracking offers the opportunity to base business relationships on a more transparent and trustworthy data foundation and to resolve disputes over delivery quantities or qualities more efficiently. Sawmills, traders, and forestry operations can jointly access an immutable data history, which facilitates certification audits and creates the basis for digital contract processing.
Employees perspective
Employees in forestry operations and logistics companies are relieved of daily documentation work by digital recording systems but must adapt to new workflows and the use of digital tools in the field. Training and user-friendly design of the recording systems are crucial for successful implementation.
Benefits
General
- Seamless, tamper-proof documentation of all process steps from harvesting to processing builds trust among all participants.
- Transparent calculation bases for timber quantities and qualities reduce conflicts and disputes along the supply chain.
- Simplified and credible proof for origin and sustainability certifications such as FSC or PEFC.
- Decentralised data exchange without a central control authority strengthens acceptance among all independent actors.
B2B — organisations
- Reduction of transaction and verification costs through automated and immutable documentation of delivery quantities and qualities.
- Improved basis for digital contract processing and automated billing processes between forestry operations, traders, and factories.
- Facilitation of certification audits through data history that is accessible and comprehensible at any time.
Employees
- Reduction of manual documentation efforts in the field and administration through digital data capture.
- Clearer process responsibilities through clearly assigned and immutable data points.
Challenges
General
- Acceptance of the technology among traditionally oriented forestry actors is a central challenge due to trust and competence gaps.
- Digital data capture directly in the forest requires robust hardware, reliable connectivity, and user-friendly systems that function under harsh conditions.
- Integrating the blockchain solution into existing industry software and ERP systems requires significant technical effort and standardisation efforts.
B2B — organisations
- The willingness of all supply chain actors to participate jointly in a decentralised system and share data is a prerequisite for the solution’s benefits but is difficult to achieve.
- Unresolved questions about data ownership, access rights, and data protection can delay implementation.
Employees
- Forestry workers and drivers need training to handle new digital recording devices, which involves initial effort.
- Technical failures or lack of connectivity in the forest can impair reliable data capture.
Technology foundation
The use case relies on blockchain technology to store data along the wood supply chain in an immutable and decentralised manner. This technology is particularly well suited for this use case because multiple independent actors – forestry operations, timber traders, transporters, and mills – need to access a trustworthy data basis together without having to trust a central controlling authority. The decentralised logging prevents subsequent manipulation and thus creates a reliable foundation for certifications, quantity calculations, and quality proofs.
Implementation examples
Forst-Holz-BlockChain – Blockchain-based Supply Chain Tracking in Forestry
The wood supply chain suffers from a lack of transparency and missing standards for digital data exchange, leading to disputes over wood quantities and qualities as well as labour-intensive manual certification processes. Blockchain is intended to create an immutable and accessible data basis for all actors here.
The University of Freiburg is developing and testing a blockchain infrastructure in the Forst-Holz-BlockChain project that digitises all process steps from timber harvesting to mill delivery seamlessly and immutably. A prototype demonstrates the practical feasibility of the approach and will be further developed within an EFRE-HIP funded project from 2023 to 2025.
The project builds on preliminary work from the joint project HoBeOpt (2019–2022), in which a demonstration scenario was already developed that used blockchain to identify deviations in wood quantities, thus addressing a concrete problem in the industry. A central initial problem was the lack of transparency of calculation factors and the absence of reliable digital data exchange between actors, which led to trust deficits and acceptance issues in wood quantity calculations. In the current follow-up project Forst-Holz-BlockChain (2023–2025), funded by EFRE-HIP, the entire process chain from harvesting to delivery at the mill is transferred into a decentralised, tamper-proof blockchain data structure. The aim is to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that demonstrates the functionality in practice and can serve as a basis for later scaling. The project is based at the Chair of Forest Work Science and Process Technology at the University of Freiburg.
The project specifically addresses trust and acceptance issues in wood quantity calculations caused by non-transparent calculation factors and insufficient digital data exchange between independent actors.
Tags
Supply chain, Traceability, Forestry, Decentralisation, Transparency, Proof of origin, Smart contract