Periodic Reporting for period 3 - CircThread (Building the Digital Thread for Circular Economy Product, Resource & Service Management)
Período documentado: 2024-06-01 hasta 2025-05-31
CircThread is an innovation project that worked on improving universal access to circular economy information for products about repair, reuse and recycling. To help citizens, manufacturers, retailers, collectors, waste managers, producer responsibility organisations, repairers and recyclers.
The end goal of CircThread was to bring all these parties together so they can access, provide and exchange the information about devices and appliances, and collaborate better. To make our products last as long as possible, and when they can no longer be reused or repaired, to recycle them in the best way available to recover the materials in them.
How this was done was by creating a common modern digital system that unlocks universal access to product data and links the IT systems of organisations and citizens, including our smartphones. So that tomorrow all actors involved across the life cycle of products will be able to access information about owned and used products to recycle, manufacture, sell or collect much more easily. To know where the device has been, how sustainable it is, what materials are in it, if it has had a previous usage life or has been repaired, and so forth. The possibilities unlocked by creating what soon everyone will know as a Digital Product Passport are limitless. This new ‘passport’ is viewable as a webpage on the internet, similar in many ways to the weblink you receive to track a package to your doorstep, but instead containing the information about an individual device or appliance. It can be updated with new information as a device or appliance goes through its life, starting with the manufacturer’s data that is updates with information about usage, maintenance, repair and later on recycling or disposal.
As an innovation project we designed, tested and implemented this system and making it work for everyone along the product life cycle. In three pilots in Slovenia, Spain and Italy from 2021 to 2025 to establish what product sustainability, social and circularity information needs to be exchanged for citizens and employees. What a Digital Product Passport looks like for the pilot products, boilers, washing machines, solar glass panels, dishwashers, and batteries. How to put in place the digital platform that allows for exchanging this information using the Digital Product Passport and linked Circular Data Spaces, we brought new digital innovations together that can enable every actor to work together. And we established how the sharing of information can create new jobs and a better economy.
The end goal of CircThread was to bring all these parties together so they can access, provide and exchange the information about devices and appliances, and collaborate better. To make our products last as long as possible, and when they can no longer be reused or repaired, to recycle them in the best way available to recover the materials in them.
How this was done was by creating a common modern digital system that unlocks universal access to product data and links the IT systems of organisations and citizens, including our smartphones. So that tomorrow all actors involved across the life cycle of products will be able to access information about owned and used products to recycle, manufacture, sell or collect much more easily. To know where the device has been, how sustainable it is, what materials are in it, if it has had a previous usage life or has been repaired, and so forth. The possibilities unlocked by creating what soon everyone will know as a Digital Product Passport are limitless. This new ‘passport’ is viewable as a webpage on the internet, similar in many ways to the weblink you receive to track a package to your doorstep, but instead containing the information about an individual device or appliance. It can be updated with new information as a device or appliance goes through its life, starting with the manufacturer’s data that is updates with information about usage, maintenance, repair and later on recycling or disposal.
As an innovation project we designed, tested and implemented this system and making it work for everyone along the product life cycle. In three pilots in Slovenia, Spain and Italy from 2021 to 2025 to establish what product sustainability, social and circularity information needs to be exchanged for citizens and employees. What a Digital Product Passport looks like for the pilot products, boilers, washing machines, solar glass panels, dishwashers, and batteries. How to put in place the digital platform that allows for exchanging this information using the Digital Product Passport and linked Circular Data Spaces, we brought new digital innovations together that can enable every actor to work together. And we established how the sharing of information can create new jobs and a better economy.
Looking back at the project results, the CircThread project has successfully demonstrated that Digital Product Passports (DPPs) can effectively support the transition towards the circular economy. The use of DPPs to exchange lifecycle information across stakeholders, empower consumers, manufacturers, and regulators in a transparent environment. This transparency is vital to improving product traceability, fostering sustainable consumption, and enabling more efficient repair, reuse, refurbishment, and recycling practices.
In this context, CircThread validated the use of digital traceability through time-stamped events as a viable model to link every stage of a product’s life—from production to end-of-life—thereby enabling smarter, more responsible decisions throughout the value chain. The integration of these capabilities in Digital Product Passports has the potential to optimize resource flows, reduce waste, and support compliance with emerging EU regulations such as the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR).
The incorporation of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) methodologies into the DPP framework provides a robust foundation for evaluating environmental and social impacts in a harmonized and scalable way. LCSA tools empower companies to make data- informed decisions that balance environmental and socio-economic considerations.
The successful deployment of the CircThread concept in the three project pilots confirmed the viability and strong stakeholder interest in digitally supported circular practices. However, the development of new business models that support data sharing and lifecycle extension is essential. Besides, it is important to ensure that all actors (manufacturers, repairers, refurbishers, recyclers, and consumers) are fairly rewarded for their participation to incentivize data exchange.
Finally, a more circular use of materials can be unlocked by transforming how we digitalise and manage materials data using Digital product Passports. This is critical to overcome the ever increasing reliance of the EU on importing materials, and the risks posed by the accumulation of hazardous substances in recirculation of materials through consecutive recycling loops. DPPs, when linked to material data, offer a powerful solution that makes component-level material compositions transparent and accessible across the product lifecycle. This would enable safer and more efficient recycling, increased recovery rate of CRMs, and proactive identification of substances that could compromise circularity in the design phase. Moreover, DPPs can bridge the gap between upstream supply chains and downstream recycling ecosystems, enabling the aggregation of materials data within geographies across item level DPPs for smarter design, regulatory compliance, and specialty treatment processes.
In this context, CircThread validated the use of digital traceability through time-stamped events as a viable model to link every stage of a product’s life—from production to end-of-life—thereby enabling smarter, more responsible decisions throughout the value chain. The integration of these capabilities in Digital Product Passports has the potential to optimize resource flows, reduce waste, and support compliance with emerging EU regulations such as the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR).
The incorporation of Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) methodologies into the DPP framework provides a robust foundation for evaluating environmental and social impacts in a harmonized and scalable way. LCSA tools empower companies to make data- informed decisions that balance environmental and socio-economic considerations.
The successful deployment of the CircThread concept in the three project pilots confirmed the viability and strong stakeholder interest in digitally supported circular practices. However, the development of new business models that support data sharing and lifecycle extension is essential. Besides, it is important to ensure that all actors (manufacturers, repairers, refurbishers, recyclers, and consumers) are fairly rewarded for their participation to incentivize data exchange.
Finally, a more circular use of materials can be unlocked by transforming how we digitalise and manage materials data using Digital product Passports. This is critical to overcome the ever increasing reliance of the EU on importing materials, and the risks posed by the accumulation of hazardous substances in recirculation of materials through consecutive recycling loops. DPPs, when linked to material data, offer a powerful solution that makes component-level material compositions transparent and accessible across the product lifecycle. This would enable safer and more efficient recycling, increased recovery rate of CRMs, and proactive identification of substances that could compromise circularity in the design phase. Moreover, DPPs can bridge the gap between upstream supply chains and downstream recycling ecosystems, enabling the aggregation of materials data within geographies across item level DPPs for smarter design, regulatory compliance, and specialty treatment processes.
At present, the sharing of information across actors in the product life cycle happens in a few specific cases because of regulatory requirements. For example, existing regulations require manufacturers to create energy labels and share it with consumers, and recyclers need to establish an estimate of the tonnes of particular products recycled in a given year. Currently this is being managed through specific databases or tools.
New innovations are needed to bring all the actors across a product’s life cycle together and enable broader sharing. State-of-the-art digital technologies under development that will make this much easier are Data Spaces for the exchange and Digital Product Passports for the information structuring plus access and linkage to physical products. Data spaces are a new technology to manage the identification, search and sharing of data between different organisations and/or individuals.
CircThread has progressed in its second period beyond the state of the art at three levels. Firstly, by deploying its Digital Product Passport service and testing it with consumers in piloting and evaluating how it can be used with all product life cycle economic actors for further piloting. Secondly, by bringing to the stage of piloting a wide range of digital services for assessing products that are damaged and end-of-use, for environmental & circularity assessments, materials & energy information management, among others. Thirdly, by evaluating based on the possibilities of the digital services developed and results so far what this means for the emerging EU wide Digital Product Passport system in four policy papers.
New innovations are needed to bring all the actors across a product’s life cycle together and enable broader sharing. State-of-the-art digital technologies under development that will make this much easier are Data Spaces for the exchange and Digital Product Passports for the information structuring plus access and linkage to physical products. Data spaces are a new technology to manage the identification, search and sharing of data between different organisations and/or individuals.
CircThread has progressed in its second period beyond the state of the art at three levels. Firstly, by deploying its Digital Product Passport service and testing it with consumers in piloting and evaluating how it can be used with all product life cycle economic actors for further piloting. Secondly, by bringing to the stage of piloting a wide range of digital services for assessing products that are damaged and end-of-use, for environmental & circularity assessments, materials & energy information management, among others. Thirdly, by evaluating based on the possibilities of the digital services developed and results so far what this means for the emerging EU wide Digital Product Passport system in four policy papers.