A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is being discussed as a core instrument for building a circular economy, itself a key enabler of climate neutrality. Although there is not yet a standardised, cross-sectoral and cross-company product passport system, there are already individual solutions for collecting information for certain product groups.
A DPP needs to be made available digitally for all stakeholders in order to increase transparency throughout the entire product lifecycle.
This paper answers the following questions:
Why are politicians pushing for a DPP in connection with the circular economy?
What is a DPP?
What already exists?
What does a DPP need?
How ready are companies for a DPP? How can a DPP be delivered?
Circular Hub Tirol is the point of contact for all issues dealing with thecircular economy in Austria's Tyrol region. Together with their partners, they offer services such as
project initiation
networking
circularity check for SMEs
information and further education on the circular economy, and
an annual exhibition of good practices in the area of circular design.
The transformation into a circular economy entails factoring resource flows into production, sales and consumption processes and thus massively reducing the use of materials (raw or otherwise), as well as the volume of waste and the strain on the environment.
Austria's circular economy strategy therefore aims to:
Eco Repair Score NV and VITO have developed the Eco Repair Score® to assess the environmental impact of a specific car repair job. It does this using a single score, with categories from A to E and associated colour coding.
The innovation cluster Circular Saxony aims to re-design products and processes in line with circularity and sustainability, while lowering the costs of society's transformation towards climate neutrality.
It brings together industry, research and policy representatives in thematic working groups which will work on practical solutions within the region of Saxony.
Goals:
Foster collaboration across sectors and technologies among SMEs, large enterprises, research organisations, associations and policymakers in Saxony
Transfer knowledge
Facilitate projects for members
Set up pilot lines and digital networking technology
Increase quota of materials kept in the loop for all relevant materials
Blue Plastics technology, called CleanBlueTech, is a pioneering, solvent-based, closed-loop washing technology that removes smell, glue, print-ink and organic residues from any plastic flexible film waste.
CleanBlueTech is a game changer as it uses 70% less energy and 100% less water than existing technologies.
Neue Effizienz is an institution for knowledge transfer and research in the area of energy and resource efficiency based in Wuppertal, Germany. As a regional association, it is funded by the municipalities, public utilities and regional economic development institutions of Wuppertal, Solingen and Remscheid.
It promotes innovation as well as science and technology transfer in the fields of energy, circular economy, new mobility and smart cities.bergisch.metall, a competence network for the metal industry, fouses on the circular economy; the bergisch.circular project assists the municipalities with the establishment of intermunicipal structures and initiatives supporting the circular transformation.
The Ocean Package UG is a young and sustainable company from Munich with the goal to make e-commerce more environmentally friendly and sustainable. For this purpose, they have designed reusable packaging made of recycled polypropylene, which contains a proportion of collected plastic from the North Sea. Their product can be used 20 times more often than conventional cardboard packaging.
SuperDrecksKëscht has developed the concept of resources potential certification of demanufacturing plants. It allows for product-related evaluation of treatment, recycling and disposal plants including actual volumes of raw materials recovered and the proportion used for energy generation.
