>> Announcer: Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering AWS Executive Summit. Brought to you by Accenture. >> Hello everyone and welcome back to theCUBE's live coverage of the Accenture Executive Summit here at the Venetian in Las Vegas. Part of AW re:invent, of course. I'm your host, Rebecca Knight. We have two guests for this segment. We have Leandro Nunes. He is the Vice President of Product Development at Mastercard. Thank you so much for coming on the show. >> Thanks for having me. >> And Christine Leong, she is the Managing Director, Accenture Blockchain and Biometrics. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> So sustainability is a hot topic in the industry, in all industry today and especially here at AWS re:Invent. I want to talk to you about circular supply chain which was an idea that germinated in your brain a couple of years ago, but it really just sort of launched a year ago. Tell us more about why you started CSC. >> Sure. We started this actually because, a couple of things. We drink coffee every single day, and as we go into every coffee shop and we think about, well, you see packets saying this is my single origin coffee. I pay extra for this and it's sustainably grown and yet so see news saying that the rain forest is being burned down and animals are being killed. And so about two years ago, I looked at this and I thought, "Wow, how do I know "this is really sustainable, what I'm drinking?" The extra five bucks that I'm paying at my coffee shop, is it really single origin? Is it really going to the right people? Is it really killing the orangutans and the rainforest and then I see a statistic that says, well, for every cup of coffee that we drink, a square inch of rainforest gets burned down. And, I mean, I drink at least five cups of coffee a day. So that's not good, right? So then I thought, and working, actually, with Mastercard at the time, I'm doing and still do actually do a lot of work with Mastercard around identity and biometrics and I thought, "Well, how can we combine "some of these capabilities we have "with Blockchain identity to say, "to put our money where our mouths is?" To change the incentives at the base of the pyramid where farmers, producers, smallholders. If I can say to them that I really want to care that you don't burn the forest down, that you produce in a good way. And they're just trying to survive. They're not bad people, if they are just hand to mouth. That if we can say, right, we'll pay you more as consumers and we know it's definitely going to that right person, then maybe we can help to change some of, you know, and not have the rainforests and not have my guilty cup of coffee, right? >> So even if we don't drink quite as much coffee as you, Christine, we are as a group, consumers are more socially conscious than they ever have been. What are some of the statistics here? That people just care more about this stuff, in general, and they're willing to pay premium for it. >> So, for example, the green trade is estimated, this came out from Unilever, at $2 trillion a year, by next year actually. I mean, that's a staggering statistic and as you see more and more on social media, on literally every platform that you can see. Sustainability is a huge topic with the recent UN climate discussions. I mean, next week in Madrid, it's a big topic that we should all, as responsible responsible consumers, care about. >> So Leandro, what do you see as the benefits of CSC of small actors? >> Well, it's a great point, because when you seriously think about it you usually say a lot about consumers and the big brands. And now we are protecting the big brands, but just think about the sourcing side of the supply chain, right? The small communities, the ones that are growing the coffee, the ones that are the farmers over there or the fishermen. Now, these ones have been there for a while, they are just being kind of squeezed by the whole supply chain, squeezed by the whole business. Right? You think like let's remove a little bit of their margin, let's put it into something else. Now, when you have the circle of supply chain, because consumers in this new generation is so interested in knowing where the product comes from, if they are doing the right thing. Now there's a chance that you can pay them back. It's all about coming up with an incentive model, that's what we see with Mastercard, right? When you create a network like that, which the Blockchain solution is, it's a big network. So how we can gain traction, how we can gain adoption? One thing is, you need to establish incentives through all of the parties that you have in the network. So if you're just taking care of the brand and they're going to say, "Brands, mandate to your suppliers "that needs to do that." This is not going to work. What will work is, what is the incentive the farmers are going to have? What is the sourcing? So, wait a minute. So, don't you think the farmers want to do the right thing? Of course they do, but do they have incentives for that? If it's just a letter, or if it's just someone mandating, they're not going to do it. But if you come with the idea of, "Hey, I pay you back your coffee "or whatever your product you're doing, "you can have a premium. "It's going to be sustainable to your family as well. "Your business can be more profitable." So they will see, "Okay, I want to be part of it." >> So, it's creating incentives for people, for the producers themselves to grow things more sustainably. >> It's all about that, it's not only them. And then you go to the suppliers, you go to the logistics, transportation companies. You give them the visibility. They always complain about, "How can I have the visibility of my supply chain?" "Why?" "Can you create the visibility?" You give the transparency that you create the trust. And if you'll ask people in a supply chain business what the big problem is in supply chain, it's trust. They don't trust each other, but they have to trade things and they don't trust each other. You do business with people you don't trust every single day. It's not a good thing. So, if you bring this visibility, you facilitate this and they see there's an incentive to be also part of it. >> So Christine, what are the kinds of technologies that are powering the CSC and how does it create that trust or cultivate that trust? >> And Leandro is spot on in terms of trust. It's about trusting the people, but trusting the data and trusting the entities that put in some of the data. There are components of Blockchain, of course, that serve the traceability aspects of any of the product. Blockchain also helps with the decentralized identity capability that we've put in. We've made also biometrics for the individual, but this is optional, depending on how, in terms of using it very responsibly. Payments of course, digital payments and having the ability to actually direct payments through the Mastercard rails. And then, of course, with the power of AWS and then hosting it on the cloud and be able to have that anywhere. And the different aspects of including IoT, so we know that let's say for fisheries, this product actually really came from this place, you know, there's sensors, we know that it's kept at the right temperature, therefore insurance payoffs and things like that will be right and tracked all the way through and knowing that the product is really fresh and really kept intact throughout the journey. So a whole bunch of different technology. >> Totally agreed. Projects with Blockchain only tend not to succeed and the reason is because you need to nurture the ecosystem. So how you bring the IoT-- >> Yes. >> To the table, how you bring payments, how you bring AI. You get all these solutions together and then you create what this visibility, that's the trust we need. Companies who are trying to do one side, which is just the Blockchain, they are not going anywhere. The reason that I like their alliance with Accenture and AWS is because we know that we needed to do this end-to-end and this is going to be broader than just talking about Blockchain. >> Rebecca: Yes. >> And it's about the people, because you have to, ultimately it's the consumer and the base of the pyramid, producer. Both have identities, and if we are able to say, "This is the identity of the person," I can then help to influence their livelihoods. >> So it's putting a real face on the supply chain for the end consumer. I mean, at a time where consumers are demanding more transparency in the supply chain, demanding to know more about the source of the goods, of the products that they're buying, what has been the reception and what are you hearing back? >> I think we've had great receptions. We launched it at Davos, earlier this year. We've had a huge amount of interest and now slowly we're gaining sort of traction in terms of getting the pilots and putting them in place. And I think it's also something that people need to, initially it's a little bit of education, understanding, well, how does this actually all work? You know, is it just traceability? Is it just identity? Or is it actually all of those things? Understanding the use cases and embracing that it's not just one way of doing something and it's really a concept of embracing better business through better technology and innovation can actually be more sustainable and responsible businesses. So the traction has been great and we have a number of pilots in the pipeline. >> Yeah, in the past I used to believe that some things we should stop doing or stop eating because of the sustainable part of it, and I have learned that is not the case. You can do the right thing, you can make sure that you are doing the right thing and you can eat with no guilt. That's what everybody wants, right? This is the type of visibility you want to give from the consumer side, but not from the company side of it. The brands are, "Okay, I'm safe," because brands, they have a very good visibility from the distributor on, but they don't know what's going on behind that, and our products, this is so globalized nowadays, so fragmented. You know, it comes from so many different places. Brands, there is no way that they can control it if they don't have this veil. That's why we're trying to bring together. >> So when this fully does launch and the consumer is then seeing the face of the coffee grower in Brazil or in Kenya-- >> Yeah. >> And saying, "Okay," so then what happens then? How are they able to incentivize that farmer to do the right thing, as you say? >> There is a digital payment channel, powered by Mastercard, that you can then tip, so to speak, tip the farmer, donate money and actually say, "Well, there's multiple ways of doing things." Right? For example, if I'm the consumer scanning the product and we have a whole Lego city built upstairs that can showcase this, and say, "Right, this is how it works," and scan the product and where I can say, "Right, I want to be able "to donate an extra dollar for this farmer "because I really like the fact that you are sustainable. "And not burning the rainforest down "and protecting the orangutans or elephants or the birds. "So great, I'm going to give you an extra dollar." So this is how it's going to work on the app. >> And there are other consequences as well. There are so many organic products nowadays, but they're not really organic. So if you can prove they're organic, the farmers would feel more motivated to really grow that as an organic product because there is a premium. So it's not only the tip that you give to them, but also the fact that you can create a premium price situation that will motivate others to do the same. So brands would give the differentiator, farmers would feel like, "Okay, if I do this way, "it would be more profitable," and consumers would benefit from a real organic or a real product with the sustainability behind it. >> Great, consumers can trust more. >> Exactly. >> It's not just fake news. What are some of the, I mean, this is such a cool concept. What are some of the biggest challenges in really launching it and making it a reality? What is keeping you up at night? >> I think some of it is actually just education and getting it out there. And understanding that this is a lot of stakeholders. So, from consumer brands all the way down to the smallholder providers. It's a lot of people to link up and a lot of organizations to talk to. So some of it is just getting through that process and getting people to understand. Also, actually, hopefully we'll get consumers to adopt. >> Yeah. >> And understand that this is something that they will want to do. >> Yeah, this whole integration, like Christine said, it is important, right? So you understand all the key stakeholders. It don't need to be all of them at the beginning, but at least the key stakeholders in a supply chain. And how you can create the business incentive model for them to be part of that. So it's a mapping exercise. We're getting there and that's where you gain adoption, and if you get the consumer side doing this as well, so it creates a network effect. And that's why we're trying to do it at Mastercard. It's in our DNA, like, build the networks, right. Everybody knows that. So we wanted to bring this to the ecosystem, to contribute that, okay, so how can I create a network effect that they can exponentially scale for their whole marketshare, for their whole marketplace. >> I want to ask you a personal question. You've been in technology for a really long time and now-- >> Not that old though. >> (laughing) No, no. You're just a babe. But in terms of of the kinds of projects you've worked on and the kinds of ways you're thinking about technology and then this particular project at a time where climate change is a monumental challenge and the fate of our planet really hangs in the balance with the decisions that we're making, policy makers and consumers are making today. I mean, what is it like to work on this kind of product? >> That's a great question. Yeah, well, for all of these years, I go to work with this business mentality, you know, you're going to make more money for someone else. You're going to work for big company. And see some friends and family doing things for the society, I say, "Oh my gosh, I should do something like that." And now I feel like I can do both. We're talking now as a business. It's a great solution, but it mixes so well for the, you know, for the whole society. It makes me feel really, everyday going to work and say, "Oh, this is what I want to do. "This is so cool." I mean, I'm helping, I'm benefiting myself 'cause I go to the supermarket, I'm going to be the one who's going to tip the farmer. I'm going to be the one who's going to check where my shrimp comes from, right? So I'm doing this for my family. My kids are, I hope they can live in a better planet that know exactly where the products come from. >> And the family that you have that's not even been born yet, so that's the other thing, too, helping future generations. >> That's amazing. We're doing things that, we never know. >> Yes, you deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, Leandro. (all laughing) Thank you so much, Leandro and Christine, for coming on theCUBE. A really fun and fascinating conversation. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> I'm Rebecca Knight. Stay tuned for more of theCUBE's live coverage at the Accenture Executive Summit coming up after lunch. (upbeat music)

by from Las Vegas it's the cube coverage AWS executive summary brought to you by Accenture hello everyone and welcome back to the cubes live coverage of the Accenture executive summit here at the Venetian in Las Vegas part of aw reinvent of course I'm your host Rebecca Knight we have two guests for this segment we have Leandro Nunez he is the vice president product development at MasterCard thank you so much for coming on the show thanks for having me and Christine Leung she is the managing director Accenture blockchain and biometrics thank you so much you so sustainability is a hot topic in the industry too in all industry today and especially here at AWS reinvent I want to talk to you about circular supply chain which was an idea that germinated in your brain a couple of years ago but it's really just sort of launched a year ago tell us more about why you started Cs sure we started this actually because a couple of things I we drink coffee every single day and we go into every coffee shop and we think about well you know you see packets saying this is my single origin coffee this is I pay extra for this and it's sustainably grown and yet you see news saying that you know the rain forest is being burnt down and animals are being killed and so about two years ago I looked at this and I thought wow you know how do I know this is really sustainable what I'm drinking the extra five books that I'm hanging at my coffee shop is it really is it really sink origin is it really going to the right people is it really killing the orangutans and the rainforest and then I see a statistic success well for every coffee a cup of coffee that we drink a square inch of rain forests get burnt down and I mean I drink at least five cups of coffee a day and working actually with MasterCard at the time I'm doing a and still do actually doing a lot of work with MasterCard in around identity and biometrics and I thought well you know how can we combine some of these capabilities we have with blockchain identity to say to put our money where our mouths is to change incentives as the base of the pyramid where you know performers produces smallholders if I can say to them that I really won't care but you don't burn a fat forest out that you produce in a good way and they just tried to survive they're not bad people if they're just hand-to-mouth but if they we can say right will hate you more as consumers and we know it's definitely going to that right person then maybe we can help to change some of you know and not have the rain force and don't have my guilty cup of coffee right so even if we don't drink quite as much coffee as you we are as a as a group consumers are more socially conscious than they ever have been what are some of the statistics here that people just care more about this stuff in general and they're willing to pay a premium for it so for example the green trade is estimated and this came out for Unilever at two trillion dollars a year by the by next year actually a growing statistic and let's just see I mean more and more on social media or literally you know every platform that you can see sustainability is a huge topic with you know sort of the the recent sort of UN climate discussions I mean it's this week with next week we're in Madrid this a big topic that we should all as a responsible consumers care about so Leander what do you see as the benefits of CSE to to small actors well it's a great point because when you see that just think about it do you usually say a lot about consumers in the big brands and now we're protecting the big brands but just think about the sourcing side of the supply chain right the small communities the ones that are growing the coffee the ones that are the farm the farmers over there or the fishermen now these ones are there's meaning for a while they're just been because it squeezed by the whole supply chain it's but the whole business right you think like let's remove a little bit of their margin let's put in something else now when they have the circular supply chain because consumers and this new generation is so interested in knowing where the product comes from you know if you're then doing the right thing now it has a change that you can pay them back it's all about come up with incentive model that's why we should in a MasterCard right when you create a network like that which the blockchain solution is a big network so how we can gain traction how we can gain adoption one thing is you need to establish incentives through all of the parties that you have at a network so if you're just taking care of the brand and they're gonna say bran mandate to your suppliers that needs to do that this is not going to work what it works is what is the incentive the farmers gonna have what's the sourcing so we don't mean it so don't don't you think the farmers wants to do the right thing of course they do but do they have incentives for that if it's just a letter if you're just someone mandating they're not gonna do it but if you come with the idea of hey I pay you back your your coffee or whatever your products you're doing we can help you can have a premium so we can it's going to be sustainable to your family as well your business can be more profitable so they you see okay I want to be part of it so it's creating incentives for people to for the for the for the producers themselves to grow things more sustainably it's all about that it's not only them and then you go to the suppliers you go to the logistic transportation companies how do you creative you give them the visibility they always complain about how can I have the visibility of my supply chain why can you create the visibility you give the transparency that you create the trust in and if you ask people in a supply chain business what the big problem is supply chain is trust they don't trust each other but they have to trade things and they don't trust each other you do business with people you don't trust every single day it's not a good thing so if we bring this visibility you facilitate this and they see there's an incentive to be also part of it so Christine what are the kind of technologies that are bad that are that are powering the CSC and and how are we how does it create that trust i cultivate that trust um and Leandra is for Honor's and in terms of trust it's about trusting the people but trusting the data and trusting the entities that I put in some of this data there are components of blockchain of course the surface the traceability aspects of the any of the product blockchain also helps with the decentralized identity capability that we've put in we've made also biometrics for the for the individual but this is optional depending on how you know in terms of using it very responsibly payments of course digital payments and you know having the ability to actually direct payments through the MasterCard rails and then of course with you know the power of AWS and then hosting on the cloud and be able to have that anywhere and the different aspects of including a iot so we know that let's say for fisheries this product is actually really came from displays you know the sensors we know that it's kept the right temperature we did that therefore you know insurance payers and things like that would be right and tracked all the way through and knowing that the product is really fresh and really kept you know intact throughout the journey so a whole bunch of different technology totally great projects with blockchain only would tend not to succeed and the reason is because you need to come up with you need to nurture the ecosystem so how you bring the IOT yes to the table how you doing you know payments how you bring AI so you get at all these solutions together and then you create what this visibility that's trust we need so companies are trying to do one side you know which is just a blockchain they're not going anywhere the reason that I like it our alliance with Accenture and AWS is because we know that we needed to do this end-to-end and this can be broader than just talk about watching and it's about the people because you have the ultimate is the consumer and the the base of pyramid producer both have identities and if we are able to say this is the identity of the person I can then help to influence their their livelihoods so it's putting a real face on the supply chain for the end consumer I mean at a time where consumers are demanding more transparency in the supply chain demanding to know more about the source of the goods that they put the products that they're buying what has been the reception and and what are you hearing back I think we've had great receptions we launched at Davos earlier this year we've had a huge amount of interest and now slowly we're gaining sort of traction in terms of getting the pilots I'm putting them in place and I think it's also something that we'll need to UM in initially it's a little bit of Education understanding well how does this actually all work you know is it just traceability is it just identity well it's actually all those things are understanding the use cases and embracing that there are it's not just one way of doing something and this is really a concept that embracing better business through better technology and innovation can actually be more sustainable and responsible businesses so the traction has been great and we've had a we have a number of pilots in the pipeline yeah well we will in the past I used to believe that some things we should stop doing or stop eating because of the sustainable part of it and I have learned that it's not the case you can do the right thing you can make sure that they're doing the right thing and you can eat with no guilt that's why everybody wants right so so this is this is the the type of you know visibility when to give from the consumer side but not from the from the company side of I like the brands are ok I'm safe because brands they have a very good visibility from the distributor on but they don't know what's going on behind that you know products the this is so globalized now they so fragmented you know it comes from so many different places Princeton that there's no way that they can control it if they don't have this you know there's this view so that's why we're trying to bring together so when so when this when this fully does launch and a consumer is then seeing the face of the coffee grower in Brazil or in Kenya and saying ok so then what what happens then how are they able to to to incentivize that farmer to do the right thing as you say there's a digital payment channel of powered by monster cop that you can then so sue speaks if the farmer donate money and actually say well there's multiple ways of doing things right so for example if I'm the consumer scanning the the product and there is we have a whole lego city built upstairs that can show cases and say right this is how it works and you know scan the product and what I can save right I want to be able to donate an extra dollar for this farmer because I really like the fact that you are sustainable and not burning the rainforests and protecting the orangutan or elephant so the the the birds so great I'm going to give you an extra dollar so this is how it's going to work on the app and there are other consequences well there's so many organic products nowadays they're not really organic so you can prove with the organic so the farmers would feel more motivated to really grow that as a organic product because there is a premium so it's not only the the tea that you give it to them but also the fact that you can create a premium price situation that will motivate others to do the same so brands would grieve the differentiator farmers would feel like okay if I do this way how to get will be more profitable and consumers will benefit from that from a real organic or a real product what the sustainability you know behind it consumers can trust more so how do what are some of the I mean this is such a cool concept what is what are some of the biggest challenges in in really launching and making it a reality what is keeping you up at night I think some of it is actually just education and getting it out there and understanding that this is it's a lot of stakeholders so from consumer brands all the way down to the the smallholder providers so it's a lot of people to link up and a lot of organizations to talk to so some of it is just getting through that process and getting people to understand and also actually hopefully we'll get consumers understand that this is something that they will want to do yeah and that this whole integration I Christine said it's in it's important right so you understand all the key stakeholders don't need to beat all of them at the beginning but at least the key stakeholders in the supply chain and how you can create this business incentive in a dissented model for them to be part of that so it's a mapping exercise which is we are getting there and in intestine we gain adoption and and if you gather the consumer side doing this as well so it creates a network effect and that's why we try to do in a MasterCard assist in our DNA like building networks right everybody knows that so we wanted to bring this to you know >> to the ecosystem to contribute okay so how can I create a network effect that they can it exponentially scale you know for for the whole market share for the whole you know marketplace so I want to ask you a personal question you've been in technology for a really long time time and now but in terms of the kinds of projects you've worked on and the kinds of ways you're thinking about technology and then this particular project at a time where climate change is a monumental challenge the fate of our planet really hangs in the balance with what with the decisions that we're making policymakers and consumers are making today wait how what is it like to work on this kind of products a great question I yeah I was for this all these years so go to work with this business mentality you know we're gonna make more money for someone else we're gonna work for a big company and see some friends and family doing things for the society and say oh my gosh there's something like that and now I feel like I can do both right we're talking you know it's a business it's it's a great solution but makes it so well for the you know for the whole society you know it makes me feel really every day going to work and say oh this is what I want to do you know this is so cool I mean I'm helping I'm benefiting myself as I go to the supermarket I'm gonna be the one who's gonna tip the farmer I'm gonna be the one who's gonna check where my shrimp comes from right so so I'm doing this for my family my kids are like I hope they can live in a better planet that know exactly where the products come from and the family that you have it's not even been born yet so that's the other generation that's amazing really doing things that we never know thank you so much Lee under and Christine for coming on the cube a really fun and fascinating conversation thank you thank you I'm Rebecca night stay tuned for more of the cubes live coverage at the Accenture executive summit coming up after lunch [Music]