From Linear to Circular: The Industry's New Digital Era
We are in a historic shift for European production. Between 2025 and 2026, Digital Product Passports (DPP) will be rolled out as a cornerstone of the EU Ecodesign Regulation. For industry, this means the end of the “slit-and-throw” model and the beginning of a circular economy where information is as valuable as the raw material itself. We work out how the new passports redraw the playing field for recycling and production.
The digital product passport is likely to be the most important driver of digitization of the decade. Turning physical products into data carriers creates a market where quality, sustainability and traceability become the primary means of competition.
What is the essence of a Digital Product Passport?
A digital product passport is effectively a digital twin that follows a physical product throughout its lifecycle. Through a QR code or RFID tag, actors along the entire value chain can access critical data:
- Material declaration: Detailed list of alloys and chemicals.
- Sustainability Profile: Data on service life, repairability and spare parts.
- Recycling Instructions: Manuals for efficient disassembly and material separation.
- Origin: Information on the extraction of the raw material and the carbon footprint of the product.
A rescue for the metals sector
In scrap and metal recycling, the DPP solves one of the industry's biggest problems: the information gap. Historically, recyclers have been forced into expensive analyses to determine material content. With a simple scan, the sorting plant can now instantly identify precise alloys.
This allows for a separation at a level that was previously technically impossible. The result is recycled raw material with a degree of purity that can compete directly with virgin material.
Challenges and Opportunities for Business
Sweden is leading the way through pilot projects Trace4Value, where global standards for the passports are being developed. However, for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the transition also presents challenges in terms of investment costs and requirements for digital maturity.
However, those companies that integrate DPP into their ERP systems early on will have a big head start. As industrial customers begin to demand complete traceability, the digital passport becomes the strategic key to the future of raw material supply.
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