Passports for our Products


It is hard to imagine our daily life without the Nutrition Facts Label we are all so accustomed to finding on all food packaging. These labels were first introduced in the US in 1994 and in the UK in 1996 - not so long ago, at that. Nowadays, because of these labels, we can all make conscious and informed food purchases. Efrat Friedland, founder of materialscout and co-founder of Positive Plastics, dreams of the day when not just food packaging, but EVERY product, will carry such a label.

 Picture yourself standing in a large electronics store, in front of a shelf packed with espresso machines. With a click of a button or a swipe, you scan their codes, and their entire identity is revealed. That black machine  - it uses only one material for the housing, a PC/ABS blend containing 85% recycled post-consumer material, collected and compounded in the EU, with no fire retardants. The carbon footprint of this specific polymer grade is 3.2Kg/CO2 equivalent and the entire housing weighs 875gr. You continue reading about the energy consumption during the usage phase, your guarantee, ability to repair and the extended producer’s responsibility actions.

You then aim your scanner at the neighbouring red machine and discover that its housing is also made from just one material - in this case, ABS with 85% recycled content. Aha! As it is not a blend, the carbon footprint of this material is 2.7Kg/CO2 equivalent and the housing weighs but 780gr. Bingo! You’ve found your machine.

Advancing Circularity
On 30 March  2022, the European Commission presented a package of proposals that are part of the European Green Deal. At the heart of the package is a proposal for a Regulation on Ecodesign for Sustainable Products. Its goal is to make sustainable products the norm in the EU, boost circular business models and empower consumers in their decisions.

In the future, physical goods across almost all product categories will be subject to this regulation, with only medicinal, feed and food products exempted. This means that, among other things, any company selling a product in the EU market will be required to supply information about the product and its constituent components. And, although it is an EU regulation that applies strictly speaking only in the EU, it will inevitably also have a knock-on effect on global trade.

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) is an ambitious one and it will affect many stakeholders along the entire value chain of product creation. Although not yet implemented, it is on its way.

A key regulatory element in the regulation is the Digital Product Passport (DPP). Such a passport will enable products to be tagged, identified and linked to data relevant to their circularity and sustainability. In the EU, digital product passports are envisaged to become the norm for all products regulated under the ESPR.

Full Transparency     
What kind of information should a digital product passport contain? Depending on the product in question, it could include information on the raw materials, energy usage, recycled content, presence of toxins, durability, reparability (including a reparability score), spare part availability and recyclability.

Pioneering this approach to environmental sustainability data may also pave the way for a wider, voluntary data sharing that goes beyond the products and requirements regulated under the ESPR. Moreover, product passports could also serve to provide information on other sustainability aspects-  aspects such as forced labour, deforestation, or waste shipment, to name but a few.

As you can imagine, however, the average size of a nutrition facts label will hardly be sufficient for all this information. Not to mention the fact, that a car is made up of more ingredients than an energy bar.

This is where digitalisation comes into play. By creating a so-called ‘digital twin’ for every product, it becomes possible to store the entire documentation of a product online and in the cloud.

A quick google search for “digital product passport tool”, “supply chain traceability tool” or “blockchain digital passport” turns up a generous selection of well-known and less well-known software companies that already are active in providing solutions for the easy and safe registration of such information.

The Trendsetters
What industries will be the first to adopt this approach - or perhaps be forced to supply such digital passports? Surprisingly enough, although the automotive industry is one of the more complex in terms of supply chains, European electric vehicle manufacturers have been promoting such a regulation since 2020. Focusing, to begin with, on batteries. This is mainly driven by their wish to differentiate themselves from the traditional automotive industry and to gain environmental advantages. Also, not unimportantly, their supply chains have only relatively recently been assembled and are therefore easy to track. The textile and toy industries are likely to be the next to follow.
No less complex than the automotive industry is the construction industry and here, too, steps are being taken. Madaster is an online registry for materials and products for the built environment. On this digital platform, buildings are registered, including the materials and products used in their construction. Their registration and documentation facilitate their reuse in a circular economy, for the purpose of eliminating waste. The system automatically generates secure, web-based passports containing all the information about the quality, origins and location of materials and products used in the building.

Too Good to be True?
In other words, the digital tools are out there, the case studies are available, too. The European Commission is about to set the regulation in stone and the road to a circular economy in the industry would appear to be almost fully paved. However, the missing part of the picture is the industry, and some of its members are not happy about this package of proposals. Take Orgalim, for example, the EU organisation representing Europe’s technology industries - the continent’s largest manufacturing sector. Its members comprise some 770,000 innovative companies active in the mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and electronics, and metal technology branches. In June 2022, they published a position paper laying out the principles they welcome and support as well as their concerns.

Orgalim supports the DPP’s contribution to the circular economy, in terms of ensuring effective enforcement and promoting a functional internal market. Their main concerns are the protection of confidential business data, as well as a possible disproportionate burden on the industry. They have put forward a number of recommendations in which they call for, in the first place, the principle of data minimisation – in other words, providing as much data as needed, as little data as possible. In addition, according to the association, access to information should be allowed on a need-to-know basis only, requirements must be measurable and enforceable and there should be no double regulation for chemicals (which already exists).
If we look back at the Nutrition Facts Label, the US regulator of food labelling faced a similar challenge when it came to genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The food industry was against having a physical label marking GMOs on the product. They therefore created a digital label stating the presence of GMOs. This is still the practice today, with mandatory GMO disclosure in the U.S. achieved via a QR code printed on the product itself that consumers can scan.

To conclude, the benefits of the Digital Product Passport are multiple. Such a passport makes it easier for consumers to make informed decisions and for authorities to enforce regulations and maintain surveillance. It makes it easier for businesses to access information that can improve their environmental performance.

The availability of and access to reliable information are crucial for the circular economy. The implementation of the Digital Product Passport offers an opportunity to create traceability and transparency throughout the value chain. This, in my opinion, is a valid enough reason to push it forward, creating a standardised solution that will be accepted by most, if not all, stakeholders. 

 This article first appeared in Sustainable Plastics, issue 5, 2022. Click to read.