Collaborative Initiative for a Standards-based Digital Product Passport for Stakeholder-Specific Sharing of Product Data for a Circular Economy

ended

The European Commission has recently shown a growing interest in emerging technologies to support the ‘twin’, green and digital, transitions and specifically in the development of a Digital Product Passport (DPP). A DPP is a structured digital collection of product-related information including data on sustainability and circularity performance whose objective is to facilitate circular value retention and extraction activities such as reuse, remanufacturing and recycling. The aim of CIRPASS is to prepare the ground for a gradual deployment of DPPs from 2023 onwards, with an initial focus on the electronics, batteries and textile sectors. Spurred by the need to accelerate the transition to a more circular and sustainable economy, combined with new opportunities offered by a burgeoning data market, a large number of European and international initiatives have emerged recently. CIRPASS’s methodology consists in uniting representatives from a large number of these early DPP pilots in order to build a balanced, open and transparent community dedicated to the design and roll-out of the upcoming European DPP. To ensure a neutral and technology agnostic stance, CIRPASS relies heavily on the involvement of leading European Research and Technology organisations, supported by three standardization organisations, an experienced pool of circular economy and sustainability consultancies, several large European industrial associations, digital technologies and web experts and selected digital solution providers. Thanks to this community of expertise, the project will build consensus and momentum around the DPP concept and contribute to the development of common principles, prototypes and roadmaps to secure the interoperability of DPPs across value chains, sectors and market participants. Enhanced stakeholder dialogue will be achieved through extensive consultations addressing key DPP aspects such as ontologies, technical requirements and standardization needs.