Digital product passports: Problems and potential for stemming the flow of Europe’s packaging waste

08 Jul 2024 --- Digital product passports (DPP) are planned for implementation throughout the EU from 2027. This means many products will be required to carry electronic information stating where their materials originated, how and when they can be reused or recycled, and other information relating to a product’s lifecycle.

But to what extent the EU’s DPP scheme will foster a circular economy is still under debate as the bloc establishes its guidelines. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) has said that because the European Commission (EC) is developing DPPs that are product-group specific, there is a risk of facing a long timeline for broad DPP implementation across industries.

“However, moving quickly and unlocking DPP-enabled transparency early can help decouple economic growth from resource extraction, waste streams and carbon emissions, thereby significantly affecting the well being of the planet and humanity,” the organization states.

Peter Stael, owner of the Netherlands-based industry consulting group We Create Change, tells Packaging Insights that DPPs have an important place in the future of the industry, particularly in relationship with the newly adopted Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) and how other digital technologies that can aid the transition to a circular economy.

“Companies and institutions are already working on the concept, trying to produce an open and transparent standard for all stakeholders to access it and see what the product is made of, how it is made and why it is made the way it is made,” he says.

This will allow businesses to show, for example, that deforestation was not involved in crop production, that child labor was not involved and that human rights were respected.

The need for collaboration
The WBCSD says the EU DPP will impact the majority of packaging companies in the coming years.

The organization says businesses can benefit from taking early action to influence regulation, improve compliance and resilience, unlock investment synergies and increase transparency.

Enabling circularity through DPPs could unlock trillions of dollars in market value, according to the WBCSD.“Key actions to get started with are: engaging in shaping the emerging DPP regulation; assessing the company’s current data availability and starting to fill the gaps; enabling the organization across departments to adapt to the coming DPP implementation and planning for changes in the tech setup.”

“In the end, the success of the EU DPP implementation will largely depend on how companies, NGOs and the EC collaborate to find realistic and impactful solutions quickly.

“The earlier the EC communicates clear guidance, the easier it will be for companies to prepare and the quicker a transition toward circularity can be enabled.”

Stael states that the PPWR “exposes a high urgency” in the packaging industry to create change and that there is a risk the FMCG industry could underestimate the consequences of new legislation and “go back into sleeping mode.”

“Even though PPWR might seem to give some time to breathe, the industry better wake up.”

Missing questions around DPPs
The WBCSD notes that a lot of uncertainty remains around the implementation of the DPP, making it difficult for companies to foresee how it will apply to them and what effective implementation will require. Multiple topics are not yet sufficiently defined, and the organization notes several open issues that need more detailed analysis.

Product groups, such as plastics or cardboard, are not yet segmented or planned for differing sets of rules. Alternatively, the EC may choose to categorize rules by industry, such as packaging or textiles.

Company size — an umbrella implementation could overburden SMEs, says the WBCSD, unless DPP implementation is set in tranches, with larger corporations required to move first.

Data issues entail significant investments in IT storage and streamlining. There also remains the question of how the EC will delegate responsibility for data management and whether this will be held at the company level or via sanctioned institutions.

Moreover, the EC has yet to lay out rules on how data will be verified since companies will be held individually responsible for reporting and managing their data.

“A digital passport needs to have a carrier in order to access the data that are in the DPP. By law this carrier can be a QR-code or any other carrier,” suggests Stael. “The market is most ready to use the QR-code as it is closest to the barcode that is well known and well introduced in the market.”

“But the QR-code is only accessible through Near Field Communication (NFC), and therefore, you need specific equipment and always to be close to the product when scanning. With ever more need for up-to-date full data, we expect that the NFC technique will not be enough anymore. The carrier should also be able to approach on higher distances, so RFID techniques,” he says.

By Louis Gore-Langton

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