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In the rapidly evolving landscape of sustainable business practices, Digital Product Passports (DPPs) are emerging as a revolutionary tool for lifecycle management.  

DPPs provide comprehensive digital records of a product's materials, manufacturing processes, and environmental impacts, facilitating transparency and traceability from creation to disposal. By leveraging advanced technologies, DPPs empower stakeholders, instilling confidence in their ability to make informed sustainability decisions, enhance circular economy strategies, and meet stringent regulatory requirements.  

In this blog, I explore the purpose of DPPs and their potential in optimising product lifecycles and fostering a more accountable and eco-friendly future. Additionally, I provide insights into the benefits of technology that automates lifecycle management, highlighting how these advancements can streamline reporting processes, ensure compliance, and enhance overall sustainability efforts. 

The origin of DPPs

To understand the role of DPPs, it's crucial to consider their position in the broader landscape of the EU regulations for sustainability and the circular economy. DPPs are not just a tool for individual companies but a key measure in the larger framework of sustainability regulations, ensuring that all market players are working towards a more sustainable future. 

The DPP is, in fact, a key measure of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). The regulation took effect on July 18, 2024, and replaced the previous Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC. The value of this regulation is establishing a framework for setting ecodesign and performance requirements for sustainable products sold on the EU market.  

The ESPR and DPP are crucial moves towards adopting circular economy principles throughout the entire lifecycle of products, from the production of raw materials to their end-of-life disposal. Their operationalisation is not just important but paramount if we want to achieve the ambitious goals set in the EU's Green Deal and the 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan for Europe to become climate-neutral by 2050. 

Features of a sustainable product in a circular economy 

Based on the circular economy, materials never become waste and nature is regenerated! Such an approach focuses on keeping products and materials in use through maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, recycling, and composting. This is a move away from the traditional linear economy that follows a take-make-dispose model, where raw materials are extracted, transformed into products, and eventually discarded as waste, causing natural resource depletion and significant environmental and economic challenges.  

A sustainable product in a circular economy is likely to display one or more of the following characteristics: 

• Uses less energy 

• Lasts longer 

• Can be easily repaired 

• Parts can be easily disassembled and put to further use 

• Contains fewer substances of concern 

• Can be easily recycled 

• Contains more recycled content 

• Has a lower carbon and environmental footprint over its lifecycle. 

Ultimately, circular economy principles help address climate change and other significant issues, such as biodiversity loss, waste, and pollution, by decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources. 

Implications for product leaders 

Understandably, ecodesign principles must be integrated in the design stage of products and their adoption must be monitored using data that is accurate, complete, up to date, and able to meet the information requirements dictated by the DPP.   

Product leaders are expected to be equipped and manage two main areas that are key to DPPs. 

Gather and share sustainability product data to guide decisions on areas affecting product lifecycle and value chain: 

• Material Composition: Provide detailed information about the raw materials used, their sources, and environmental footprints, aiding in sustainable material selection and procurement strategies. 

• Manufacturing Details: Collect data on the production process, including energy consumption, emissions, and labour conditions. This will allow for the optimisation of manufacturing practices and compliance with sustainability standards. 

• Usage Information: Provide guidelines on product use, maintenance, and repair to maximise lifespan, support durability, and reduce the need for premature replacements. 

• End-of-Life Options: Share instructions for proper disposal, recycling, or upcycling, ensuring that materials remain in circulation and minimising landfill waste, aligning with circular economy principles. 

• Traceability: Link the DPP to a unique product identifier to track the product's journey through the supply chain. This will enhance accountability, enable effective recall management, and provide insights for continuous improvement in the supply chain. 

Use DPPs to transform decision-making and accelerate the circular economy goals via: 

• Enhanced Transparency: Consumers can make informed choices based on a product's environmental and social impact, fostering a culture of conscious consumption. 

• Efficient Resource Management: Businesses can optimise resource use, minimise waste, and identify opportunities for recycling and upcycling. 

• Regulatory Compliance: DPPs help companies comply with environmental regulations by providing accurate and verifiable data on product composition and lifecycle. 

• Innovation and Collaboration: Sharing product information encourages collaboration across industries, driving innovation in sustainable design and manufacturing. 

Leveraging technology to implement DPPs 

At this point, we know that the DPP acts as a digital twin of the physical product and serves as a crucial instrument for disseminating information to all participants in the value chain. Its availability is anticipated to greatly improve the comprehensive traceability of a product throughout its lifecycle. However, adopting DPPs requires first a collaborative effort from various stakeholders, including manufacturers, policymakers, technology providers, and consumers and second the use of advanced technologies such as AI, blockchain, and IoT to create secure, scalable, and efficient DPP systems.  

Skyjed's lifecycle management and governance platform allows you to gather all your product data in one place and enable seamless automated collaboration around reporting, reviews and monitoring, risk and opportunity management, and regulatory compliance. It also allows you to connect with partner organisations across the value chain and safely exchange product data.  

Here are the major Skyjed’s features that help product leaders and their teams: 

Guided data collection at the product level: By leveraging pre-built and/or customised templates, you can build a structured collection of product-related data across a product's lifecycle and ensure compliance with the DPPs' requirements.  

Automated performance and risk management monitoring: Advanced AI provides automated performance and risk management monitoring, ensuring real-time oversight and proactive mitigation of potential issues throughout the product lifecycle. 

Connect and share ESG data across the value chain: Skyjed Connect facilitates seamless connections with partner organisations and the sharing of ESG data across the value chain, enabling stakeholders to collaborate, enhance traceability, and make informed, sustainable decisions. 

Streamlined reporting to various stakeholders: Automates reporting processes, delivering tailored, real-time insights to a diverse range of stakeholders, ensuring transparency, compliance with ESG reporting standards and efficient communication. 

AI-driven insights and analytics: Provides AI-driven insights and analytics, empowering users with actionable data and visualisations to optimise product performance and strategy. 

Contact the Skyjed team today to discover how our innovative solutions can guide your organisation towards unparalleled success in the era of responsible business practices. 

About Skyjed

Skyjed’s AI-powered end-to-end lifecycle and governance platform is mission control for product management and your business as a whole.

Bringing together every data point across your entire product portfolio and lifecycle into a single source of product truth, it gives our clients a new perspective to make more strategic lifecycle decisions to launch, monitor, optimize and win with brilliant products.

Our industry-leading platform has received numerous awards and recognition from clients and industry bodies, demonstrating our commitment to innovation and excellence.

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