WikiChains - encouraging ethical consumption and transparency

I discovered WikiChains today, a rather intriguing website.

The project is put together by Dr Mark Graham from Oxford University’s Internet Institute and would appear to be a not-for-profit enterprise (calling on volunteers to help create content) – although this isn’t stated explicitly.

WikiChains aims to use crowd-sourced data to shine a light on the production chain of products we use in our everyday lives by tracing and highlighting the origins of these products and exposing the 'reality' of its journey from raw material to home.

In it’s own words, the site aims to:

encourage ethical consumption and transparency in commodity chains. … The core activities of WikiChains will involve the setting-up and maintenance of a wiki website. This website will encourage Internet users from around the world to upload text, images, sounds, and videos of any node on any commodity chain. … The hope is that ultimately a large enough body of data will be assembled to allow consumers to find out information about the chains of all mass produced commodities.