CUSTOMER STORY
Responsible Mica Initiative (RMI) x Tilkal
From Visibility to Impact: Bringing Transparency to the Mica Supply Chain
What does it really take to bring transparency to one of the world’s most fragmented and high-risk supply chains?
For the Responsible Mica Initiative (RMI), the answer lies in one essential capability: trusted, auditable, end-to-end traceability data.
Since 2017, RMI has been working to establish a fair, responsible, and sustainable mica supply chain by tackling some of the industry’s most persistent challenges — including child labor, unsafe working conditions, limited mine-level visibility, and the difficulty of verifying the true origin of mica across complex international supply networks.
These challenges are particularly acute in India and Madagascar, two of the world’s key mica-producing regions. In India especially, informal mining activities, fragmented sourcing structures, and limited regulatory oversight have historically made traceability extremely difficult. For global manufacturers and brands sourcing mica indirectly through multiple intermediaries, obtaining reliable and auditable information about origin and working conditions remains a major challenge.
This is precisely why the Responsible Mica Initiative matters.
Today, RMI brings together 113 active members across 19 countries, representing a global coalition committed to improving transparency, promoting responsible workplace practices, and building more accountable mica supply chains.
A partnership built on traceability innovation
Tilkal and RMI began working together in 2021 with a shared ambition: modernize mica traceability through next-generation digital infrastructure.
At the time, RMI’s supply chain mapping efforts were largely manual. While effective in the early years, the growing scale and complexity of the initiative made it increasingly difficult to manage data collection, reporting, verification, and supply chain visibility efficiently.
In July 2021, RMI and Tilkal announced their collaboration to deploy a blockchain-enabled traceability platform capable of securely collecting and structuring supply chain data across mines, processors, intermediaries, and downstream industries.
As Fanny Fremont, Executive Director of RMI, explained at the launch of the partnership:“From day one, we've known that our ability to trace mica to and from end-users and mines would be key to our success.”
For Tilkal, the initiative represented much more than a technology deployment. As Matthieu Hug, CEO of Tilkal, stated: “Supporting a mission-driven organization like RMI in its social cause is particularly rewarding.”
Five years later, this partnership continues to grow stronger, with traceability becoming a central operational pillar of RMI’s strategy and impact model.
Scaling transparency across the mica supply chain
The latest results from RMI’s 2025 Data Collection Campaign demonstrate the scale of progress achieved through this collaboration.
Over the last year, RMI substantially strengthened its digital backbone through the deployment of purpose-built traceability capabilities on the Tilkal platform, enabling:
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100% member participation in the traceability program
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Reporting of mica flows across 39 countries
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Visibility into 371 suppliers and 1,277 transactions
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Upstream declaration of 87 mines, primarily in Madagascar & India
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Integration of processor audit results directly into the platform
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Faster access to compliance scores, workplace standards performance, and progress tracking over time
These results represent far more than operational KPIs.
They provide actionable intelligence that allows RMI and its members to identify sourcing hotspots, detect structural blind spots, prioritize supplier engagement, and focus community support efforts where risks are highest.
The platform also enables significantly stronger accountability across the ecosystem. In 2025, RMI conducted more extensive data-verification discussions with members to improve consistency and reinforce supply chain governance.
RMI's members, Responsible Mica Initiative, Annual Report 2025
Why auditable traceability data changes everything
In high-risk supply chains such as mica, transparency cannot rely on declarations alone. Organizations need systems capable of delivering reliable, secure, and auditable information across multiple tiers of suppliers while protecting confidential business data.
This is where Tilkal’s decentralized traceability architecture plays a critical role.
By enabling members to contribute data within a shared but secure environment, the platform creates a trusted framework for collaboration across industries and geographies.
Blockchain-based traceability ensures stronger data integrity, improved auditability, and better long-term visibility into supply chain evolution.
More importantly, it transforms traceability from a reporting obligation into a strategic tool for impact.
The 2025 campaign helped RMI identify priority sourcing regions, key intermediaries, and visibility gaps that continue to limit mine-level transparency — particularly in India. These insights directly inform where the organization and its members should concentrate future supplier engagement, governance improvements, and social impact initiatives.
Looking ahead: transparency as the foundation for trust
RMI’s 2026 priorities are clear: strengthen mine-level visibility, improve data governance, and continue building trust across the mica value chain.
As the organization itself states: “Traceability, transparency and trust remain both our biggest challenge and our greatest opportunity.”
That statement captures a broader reality affecting many global supply chains today.
Transparency is no longer only about compliance. It is about enabling informed decisions, strengthening accountability, and creating the conditions for meaningful change.
For organizations operating in complex sourcing environments, auditable end-to-end traceability data is becoming essential to fulfill sustainability commitments credibly and at scale. The Responsible Mica Initiative’s progress shows what becomes possible when technology, collaboration, and purpose align around a shared mission.
Want to go further? Discover more traceability resources!
The Regulations Handbook: An overview of 15 supply chain-related legislation worldwide
The Handbook covers the 15 regulations you absolutely must know about, considering the substantial impact they will have on the way companies conduct their traceability strategies in all industries. It provides a useful starting point for you to investigate which regulations apply to you and determine what you need to do to comply with them.
Customer Story Danone: Downstream traceability and food safety for infant formula.
Danone's Track & Connect is one of the most ambitious downstream traceability initiatives to date, developed on a large scale in a global supply chain to improve visibility and strengthen consumer confidence.