One of the challenges of a circular economy is the repeated reuse of materials for new manufacturing without a decrease in their value – an issue highlighted in a 2017 report ‘‘Retaining value in the Swedish materials system’’, which aimed to capture all the downgrading effects and loss of value that occurs through the reuse and recycling of materials. Therefore, to establish the viability of circular models, we need to account for how much energy inputs, labor – and emissions – of producing new materials can be saved. This data collection and analysis can be facilitated by a digital product and material passport and assist in the calculation of material value, assessment, and reduction of environmental impacts, and the promotion of more sustainable design, sourcing, manufacturing, and purchasing decisions.
Multiple stakeholders can interact with the product information
As a DPP accompanies the physical product throughout its life cycle, it could allow multiple stakeholders to interact with the product information at multiple levels. Some actors will be able to access and read data, while others will be able to write data into the passport, thus enabling and supporting:
- traceability – from raw materials extraction/production, through to product life cycle, all the way to the product’s end of useful life, enabling better efficiency and transparency,
- due diligence efforts (particularly in relation to the upcoming EU Battery regulation requirements)
- services related to circular economy
- such as remanufacturing, repurposing, repair,
- higher rates of recycling,
- reliable information made available to a wide range of stakeholders, both public and private,
- better enforcement tools and market surveillance mechanisms for authorities (enforcing tariffs, taxes, and trade rules).
Challenges of the digital product passport remain
Although digital product passports seem to be a promising solution to help remove informational barriers to circular economy, challenges remain. First, we might not be able find any unified approaches to a DPP across industries. Second, it is largely unknown at this time how the product passport will be kept up to date throughout a product’s lifecycle. Third, issues of confidential business information and IP security will need to be addressed if industry is to adopt the concept.
Could these challenges be overcome by setting up clearer guidelines and directions – in a collaboration of regulatory and industry bodies? One example that illustrates both the potential and a roadmap for DPP is the EU Battery regulation, expected to come into force at the start of 2022.
The transition towards a circular economy is driven by policy makers, industry, and society alike. There are societal, environmental, and economic reasons catalyzing this transition. Within this frame, the digital product passport is an important tool to achieve transparency and traceability of a product throughout its life cycle to incentivize sustainable decisions.
Problems to be solved: standardization and data protection
Challenges remain, but they have been identified. Policy makers, industry associations, industry, and service providers have to discuss and tackle it. Some of the problems to solve include:
- standardizing the format for different product types,
- standardizing the metrics and measurements, e.g., for carbon footprint declarations,
- clearly defining of required data to be included in the passport,
- protecting intellectual property and confidential information,
- accessibility of data for repairers, recyclers, and consumers.
The focus of many initiatives adresses already these issues
There already are several initiatives promoting the standardization and moving towards the digitalization of product information, e.g., Luxemburg’s Product Circularity Datasheet initiative, aiming at the standardization of product circularity information. There is also the European SCIP Database for Substances of Concern, which can be considered as a public database, giving insight on individual product composition once the dissemination portal is available. And then there is the EU initiative for Safe and Sustainable-by-Design criteria, which takes the whole product life cycle into account and is working on standard criteria that can be applied for all products and industries.
