By Zachary Zeus, CEO, Pyx Global

Here at PyxGlobal, we coined the term Trust Architecture. I'll explain.

When we talk about trust architects, we're referring to the people who will design, implement and enable the frameworks the world needs for a better future. Frameworks that make it easier for people, businesses, and communities to thrive by making positive contributions to society.

In the context of global trade and supply chains, positive contributions to society include producing goods and services that cause less harm to the environment, are made more sustainably, and create better outcomes for people. It's not about being perfect. It's about being transparent and deliberate to move supply chains, systems, and decisions in a better direction. Not just saying you're doing better, but showing it. And it's not even about being altruistic. The only way change sticks is if it's commercially viable. Sustainability has to make business sense. Otherwise, it won't scale.

Let's pause on that for a moment: if the organisations and communities that make the most money do so by making the world worse, that's the direction we'll keep heading. But if those making the world better are also the ones getting more resources, we'll start to shift course. That shift doesn't happen by accident. Building a better world takes work. It takes social systems, community structures, sustainable production lines. It's all hard. And the resources need to flow to where the work is hardest.

This is where trust architects come in.

What Trust Architects Do

A trust architect blends business needs (value creation, revenue growth, cost control) with the policy environment in which they operate, and the technology that enables it all. The job is to bring these things together in a way that helps organisations build strong, clear business cases for making positive contributions to society.

Sometimes that means helping an industry sector demonstrate that it has collectively reduced its carbon footprint. Or helping a supplier prove why their product is worth more. Sometimes it means helping an industry body set shared standards. Or helping a government figure out how to use trade policy to reward sustainable production.

Buyers already ask suppliers for a lot of data. It's not new. But when we make that exchange simpler and more structured, it becomes easier to spot value and to communicate that value in a way that holds up.

And that's the real differentiator. It's not just about what you say makes your product better. It's about being able to prove it.

In practice, trust architects simplify information exchange, especially between buyers and suppliers, including along a supply chain.

Trust architects:

• Identify data needed across the value chain and design how it gets collected, managed, and shared
• Map regulatory landscapes and upcoming shifts that could impact market access
• Build cost-benefit models that show the upside of transparency and traceability
• Use open-source tools from the UN Transparency Protocol and Pyx to support scalable, interoperable design
• Architect information exchange between systems so suppliers and buyers can work from the same facts, faster
• Translate policy requirements into actionable business processes and product claims

How Trust Architects Help Businesses Stand Out

There are three main ways we see products differentiated:

Globally: Where something is made can matter. Champagne can only come from a specific region in France. Some markets perceive Australian and New Zealand baby formula as more trustworthy. That kind of provenance is powerful if you can prove it. With new tariffs that vary by country, being able to verify country of origin becomes a trade requirement.

Through supply chains: Supply-side differentiation can also create value. China's battery sector, for instance, benefits from a highly integrated supply chain, enabling speed and cost advantages. Canadian copper production uses hydroelectric power, making it cleaner to produce. These are real advantages, but they only matter if they're visible and verifiable.

Through process: How something is made matters too. Some businesses are simply better at delivering. Think cloud providers, telcos, or anyone with high-trust certifications like ISO 27001. A company that's cut its carbon footprint through changes to its manufacturing process might avoid penalties like the EU Carbon Border Tax. A wine exporter that has adopted sustainable farming practices might appeal to certain buyers versus its competitors. But again, only if those claims can be substantiated.

What trust architects do is help translate those differentiators into evidence that can be used to realise value, whether that's price, access to new markets, or regulatory preference.

Trust Architecture Business Cases

A Trust Architect could start at the company level, when a business has a unique product or process and wants to build a case around that. But there are broader use cases that are set to have wide ranging impact:

• Industry or community: Associations want to protect the value of what their members produce. The Australian milk industry, for example, cares a lot about making sure its baby formula can't be counterfeited overseas. That's a trust architecture problem.
• Government or region: Policy-makers want to amplify national advantages. Canada's low-emissions copper and Australia's critical minerals are they're valuable if you can prove their edge and translate that into trade benefit.

Across all these levels, trust architects bring the same lens: how do we make it easier to prove the quality of what is produced, and ensure that value flows back to the right places?

Policy and Standards

Policy and standards set the legal, economic and environmental terms within which trade happens. And right now, we're seeing a major shift. Boards are under pressure. Regulators are introducing new rules. But trust is low. Thanks to greenwashing, investors and consumers can't tell what's real. So there's no price premium for better behaviour just yet.

That's the challenge. Right now, organisations that put in the extra work—better data, cleaner production, more sustainable sourcing—often don't get rewarded for it. They still get paid the average price. Meanwhile, competitors that cut corners avoid the extra cost and end up with higher margins. The market isn't yet set up to recognise or reward the effort it takes to do better. Until we fix that, we're unintentionally penalising the people doing the hardest work.

The fix is to create a market where it's harder to fake claims, easier to trust what's on the label, and where better products can charge more. That's the role of trust architecture.

We work across regulations like ESPR, CRFD, CSRD, the EUDR, the US Inflation Reduction Act, and more. We also contribute to projects like the UN Transparency Protocol, the Global Trust Registry, and VCs for Trade. All of these are about building systems that reward transparency, not just enforce it. And we help implement the UN Transparency Protocol and accelerate its benefits.

Trust architects:

• Assess compliance gaps and forecast regulatory risk
• Monitor emerging global frameworks that shape trade access
• Match technical standards to business processes
• Design verifiable claims and digital credentials to support product marketing and compliance simultaneously

Technology

Trust Architects start with the business case and the policy environment. Then we find the right technology to make it work.

Pyx advocates for the use of open tools and standards because they're cheaper, faster, and easier to plug into what organisations already use. This is well aligned with the UN Transparency Protocol and the global policy direction behind it, UN/CEFACT Recommendation No. 49 - Transparency at Scale - Fostering Sustainable Value Chains.

Trust Architects focus on:

• Data interoperability
• Semantics
• Secure data exchange at key boundaries

Those boundaries are where trust breaks down. The biggest one is between suppliers and buyers. If we can make that exchange simple, clear, and fast, then both sides win. Better products get seen. Buyers make more informed choices. Trust goes up.

And it's not just physical products. We're applying these same principles to data, digital infrastructure, and AI supply chains. Because information flows are a supply chain too. They just look different.

Trust architects also:

• Build interfaces that support credentialed data exchange
• Translate legacy systems to interoperate with emerging standards
• Architect digital infrastructure that builds trust into AI and data supply chains

Could You Be a Trust Architect?

If you work at the intersection of strategy, sustainability, compliance, or systems design, you might already be one.

Roles likely to benefit from adopting a trust architect lens include:

• Sustainability leads
• Policy analysts
• Supply chain managers
• Product strategists
• Data and platform architects
• Industry or ecosystem coordinators

What other roles would you include here?

Trust needs architects. Are you one of them?
Join the Trust Architecture Movement

Pyx Global is building the community, tools, and standards that trust architects need. Start with:

• Pyx Chat — where practitioners collaborate and test ideas chat.pyx.io
• Pyx Pulse — our newsletter covering practical updates and thought leadership pulse.pyx.io
• Pyx Trust Architect Education Series - Check out upcoming webinars here & view past webinars on demand. https://pulse.pyx.io/webinar.html