About the Global Traceability Framework

Executive Summary

The Global Traceability Framework establishes a common foundation for achieving interoperable digital traceability across supply chains. Developed as a practical resource for producers, processors, distributors, retailers, technology providers, regulators, and other stakeholders, the GTF defines shared principles and requirements for how traceability data should be captured, structured, and exchanged.

Rather than prescribing requirements for a specific commodity, sector, or regulatory program, the GTF provides a common architecture that can be applied across a wide range of supply chains. Specialized Modules can then build upon this foundation to address unique product characteristics, regulatory requirements, sustainability objectives, and market needs.

The Need for Traceability

Modern supply chains are increasingly complex, often spanning multiple countries, involving hundreds of supply chain actors, and operating under diverse market and regulatory requirements. Ensuring visibility and accountability in these systems is critical not only to core business operations—such as managing supply chains and ensuring legality—but also to demonstrating responsibility in areas like environmental and social sustainability. Traceability provides the foundation for this visibility by enabling supply chain actors to follow a product’s complex, globalized supply networks.

Within the GTF, traceability is defined as the ability to follow a product and its components through all stages of the supply chain, from origin to the final point of distribution.

The Need for Interoperability

As organizations increasingly adopt digital traceability solutions, the absence of common standards can result in fragmented systems that are unable to communicate effectively with one another. This creates barriers to data sharing, increases implementation costs, and limits end-to-end visibility.

Interoperability is the ability of different digital systems to exchange and interpret information without human intervention. It is essential for achieving scalable traceability across diverse supply chains.

No single technology solution can meet the needs of every supply chain actor. By aligning around a common framework, organizations can ensure that different systems can communicate effectively while preserving flexibility in how traceability solutions are implemented.

Event-Based Traceability as the Foundation

The GTF is grounded in event-based traceability, the leading methodology for tracking products across complex supply chains. Instead of relying on static or summary records, event-based systems capture real-world product movements and transformations as they occur.

• Supply chains are broken into Critical Tracking Events (CTEs)—such as creation, shipping, or receiving—that are common across industries.
• At each CTE, supply chain actors capture Key Data Elements (KDEs)—the “who, what, where, and when” of each event.

This method creates a dynamic product history that provides a detailed, real-time view of product movement from origin to endpoint. Importantly, each actor retains ownership of the data they generate, reducing the need for centralized repositories while enhancing data security and trust. This enables companies to have visibility into their supply chains while allowing them to maintain data access controls to protect business-sensitive information.

Event-based traceability principles are increasingly reflected in international standards, industry initiatives, and regulatory frameworks. Rather than organizing traceability around commodity-specific documents or proprietary record formats, these approaches describe supply chains as a series of business events, each accompanied by standardized information about what occurred, where, when, and by whom. Global standards such as GS1 EPCIS exemplify this model, and many national and regional traceability requirements have adopted similar event-based concepts for defining traceability records and data exchange.

The GTF applies this proven approach, defining a consistent set of CTEs and KDEs that together establish the foundation for interoperable traceability for all supply chains.

A Modular Framework for Traceability

While supply chains vary significantly across commodities, regulatory programs, and sustainability initiatives, many of the fundamental principles of traceability are shared. Concepts such as CTEs, KDEs, standardized identifiers, structured data exchange, and interoperability can be applied across a wide range of products and sectors.

This framework is therefore designed using a modular architecture. A common GTF establishes shared requirements for data capture, data modeling and data exchange that can be used across supply chains. Additional Modules can then build upon this foundation to address commodity-specific characteristics, regulatory requirements, sustainability objectives, or other specialized use cases.

This approach promotes consistency while preserving flexibility. Stakeholders can implement common traceability practices—such as recording product movements, transformations, and receiving events—in a standardized manner, while retaining the ability to capture additional information relevant to specific products, supply chains, or compliance obligations.

By separating common traceability requirements from specialized requirements, the GTF supports interoperability across diverse sectors while reducing duplication of effort. Organizations can leverage a shared foundation of standards, implementation resources, and digital tools, while adapting traceability systems to meet their unique operational and business needs.

This modular approach also creates a pathway for future expansion. New commodity, regulatory, sustainability, or cross-sector focused modules can be developed as needs evolve without requiring changes to the underlying GTF, enabling traceability systems to grow while maintaining compatibility and interoperability.

GTF Requirements

Achieving interoperable, end-to-end traceability requires two fundamental capabilities:

1. Data Capture – Organizations must collect standardized information in a consistent manner. The GTF defines the standardized supply chain events at which traceability data is recorded (CTEs) and data elements used to describe those events (KDEs).
2. Data Exchange – Organizations must exchange data using harmonized formats and exchange protocols. The GTF establishes the requirements needed for different digital systems to communicate effectively and interpret information consistently.

Together, these capabilities ensure that traceability information is not only captured, but can also move seamlessly across organizations, systems, and jurisdictions.

Toward Shared, System-Wide Practices

The GTF is designed to serve as both a technical guide and a practical implementation guide. It provides clear, standardized requirements for data capture and exchange while remaining accessible to diverse stakeholders.

By aligning around the GTF, stakeholders can:

• Reduce the costs and complexities of data sharing.
• Facilitate compliance with evolving regulatory and market requirements.
• Enable greater supply chain visibility and accountability.
• Support sustainability, product integrity, and risk management objectives.
• Leverage interoperable technologies and open-source implementation resources.
• Accelerate the adoption of digital traceability systems.

Importantly, the GTF represents an aspirational state for interoperable traceability rather than a description of current industry practice. It defines a shared vision for how traceability can and should function across supply chains, while recognizing that reaching this state will require time, resources, and collaboration. Stakeholders are not expected to immediately collect and exchange all relevant data, but rather to progress step by step, building alignment and capacity along the way. In this way, the GTF provides both a long-term vision and a practical roadmap for system-wide improvement.

Legal Disclaimer

This document provides technical requirements and implementation guidance for interoperable traceability. It is not legal, regulatory, cybersecurity, or compliance advice. Organizations are responsible for determining how these requirements apply to their operations and for ensuring that any implementation complies with applicable laws, regulations, contractual obligations, data protection requirements, confidentiality commitments, and intellectual property rights.

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Document Summary

Document History

About the GTF

Purpose

The GTF establishes a common foundation for interoperable digital traceability across supply chains. It is intended to support organizations seeking to design, implement, evaluate, or extend digital traceability systems using internationally recognized standards and a common event-based architecture.

This framework is designed to serve multiple audiences, from organizations implementing traceability systems for the first time to technology providers developing interoperable software solutions. Because these audiences require different levels of technical detail, the GTF combines normative implementation requirements with explanatory guidance within a single document.

This approach enables readers to quickly locate the information most relevant to their role while ensuring that all stakeholders work from a common reference.

Document Structure

The GTF consists of four primary sections.

Introductory Information

Provides an overview of the GTF, its objectives, intended audience, document organization, and guidance for using the document.

Part 1 – GTF Requirements Specification (Normative)

Defines the mandatory requirements for conforming implementations.

This section specifies:

• GTF CTEs & KDEs
• Identifier requirements
• Data modeling, format and exchange protocols

Statements within this section use normative language such as SHALL, SHALL NOT, REQUIRED, and MUST. Conforming implementations are expected to satisfy these requirements.

Part 2 – Understanding the GTF (Informative)

Introduces the concepts and design principles that underpin the GTF, including event-based traceability, interoperability, and the modular architecture.

Part 3 – Understanding the GTF Concepts (Informative)

Explains how the GTF requirements function within real-world supply chains, providing additional context for Critical Tracking Events, Key Data Elements, roles and responsibilities, and the relationship between event and master data.

Part 4 – Technical Architecture (Informative)

Describes the technical standards and architectural components used by the GTF, including GS1 EPCIS, the GTF Business Vocabulary (CBV), GS1 Digital Link, data modeling, and data exchange.

Normative vs Informative Content

This document contains both normative and informative content.

Normative content defines the mandatory requirements that software systems and implementations must satisfy in order to conform to the GTF. Informative content provides explanation, rationale, examples, and implementation guidance intended to support understanding and adoption of those requirements.

Only the GTF Requirements Specification (Part I) establishes conformance requirements. The remaining sections are intended to assist organizations in interpreting and implementing those requirements consistently.

How to Use this Document

The GTF is intended for organizations involved in the design, implementation, governance, or use of digital traceability systems. While the technical foundations are consistent, the way in which different groups will use this resource varies:

Supply Chain Actors – Use the GTF to understand what traceability data you are responsible for capturing and when, from the first stages of production to the final stage of distribution. It will guide your data collection practices and inform technology investment decisions, ensuring that both new and existing systems are able to capture and exchange data with buyers, suppliers, regulators, and certification bodies.

Technology Providers – Use the GTF to design interoperable traceability solutions capable of capturing, modeling, and exchanging standardized traceability data across diverse supply chains.

Regulators – Use the GTF as a reference for policy design and digital reporting system requirements. Regulations supported by traceability—such as import controls or product safety laws—should align with event-based principles. Digital systems that receive standardized data directly from industry systems reduce redundancy, ease operational burden and improve compliance oversight.

Certification Standards and Program Owners – Use the GTF to strengthen chain-of-custody and digital audit requirements. While certification programs vary in scope (e.g., sustainability, social responsibility, or legality), the foundational traceability data needed to verify product claims is consistent. Aligning requirements around event-based traceability reduces duplication for certificate holders and enhances data reliability. For programs requiring digital submissions or audits, the GTF provides a foundation for system design.

Industry Associations and Other NGOs – Use the GTF to support capacity building, implementation, and alignment with international standards. By promoting system-wide consistent data practices and vocabulary, associations and NGOs can help members reduce complexity, align with international standards, and accelerate progress toward interoperable traceability.