Solid and Secure Multi-Party Computation for a Circular Economy

Jan Grau, Aliza Maftun, Kimberly Garcia, Simon Mayer

Keywords: Social Linked Data, industrial ecology, carbon footprint, Life Cycle Analysis, WebAssembly Components

TL;DR: A novel semantic privacy-preserving approach to leverage company data for Life Cycle Assessment using Solid.

Abstract: Advancing the circular economy requires accessible, high-quality data from across supply chains. While platforms such the ISO-compliant Green Design for Tomorrow (GDT) already offer services to support circular transformation, much of the data needed for effective circular decision-making remains locked within corporate IT systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning systems. This data is not only difficult to extract due to deep integration with core business processes and controlled APIs, but companies are also reluctant to share it for fear of losing competitive advantage: the data holds business value. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of a ontology-based architecture and the Solid protocol to address these challenges. By making each member of the supply chain a data provider based on the Solid protocol and performing Life Cycle Assessment in a privacy-preserving manner through Secure Multi-Party Computation, we enable cross-supply-chain data integration while companies retain control of their data and its usage. This supports transitioning to a circular economy while offering a path to solve the involved confidentiality-transparency conundrum.

Submission Number: 12