About the Project
PACE-DPP is motivated by providing guardrails and solution bricks for tackling the basic technological and regulatory challenges for Promoting and Accelerating a Digital Product Passport based data-service ecosystems, whereas the project takes the two fundamental viewpoints from regulators and businesses sides into account.
PACE-DPP objectives are defined as follows:
- O1: Evidence-based elaboration of highly relevant framework conditions and requirements for supporting an accelerated Digital Product Passport market-uptake.
- O2: Future-proof demonstration of technological breakthroughs for enabling Digital Product Passport based data-service ecosystems.
- O3: Multi-dimensional improvement of circular economy based on intensive Digital Product Passport utilization.
- O4: Value-chain engagement by a Digital Product Passport based Data-Service Ecosystem for ensuring a sustainable implementation of projects outcomes.
The PACE-DPP project’s approach is to iteratively determine and align requirements from the various sides. Effective alignment will be ensured by highly relevant industrial application (sample) use-cases, where technical and regulatory concepts are adapted according to insights gained from the instantiation of a DPP-based data-service ecosystems. Evidence-based and consolidated recommendations will be provided in a condensed way to authorities for adjusting regulation and advising standardization initiatives, to shape the technical design and implementation of data-service ecosystems for unleashing DPP-based circular economy.
In contrast to the traditional linear economy’s take-make-waste approach, by emphasizing re-use, repair, and recycling aims to minimize waste and extend the lifecycle of resources and products.
The project-specific adapted butterfly diagram encapsulates the essence of the circular economy by depicting the perpetual flow of materials through two principal cycles:
- the technical cycle emphasizes keeping products and materials in use by reuse, repair, remanufacture, and recycling,
- the biological cycle focuses on returning nutrients from biodegradable materials back to the earth, thus aiding in the regeneration of nature.
By integrating circular economy principles into value chains and conducting thorough analyses of supply chains within the wood/paper and electronic device sectors, the consortium aims to enhance processes with circular flows.
The DPP will serve as a crucial facilitator, providing unique identifiers, serving as a data carrier, and establishing connections between physical products and their digital counterparts. It will also manage access rights, ensure interoperability, and handle data storage and persistence, authentication, reliability, integrity, security, and privacy.
These functionalities form the foundation for defining the data-services within a data-service ecosystem.
One significant pathway for industrial uptake and exploitation of project outcomes is realized by the envisaged service-oriented extension of an existing Decentral Brokerage Platform for demonstrating accessible DPP data & service ecosystems.
This service-oriented platform will bring together the relevant stakeholders – especially including data intermediaries for ensuring data compliance – for having lightweight access to DPP data-services as well as its business ecosystems. Envisaged services as “Green Configuration”, “Material Traceability”, “Bill of Material” or “State of Health” are to be demonstrated within the context of circular economy.
In addition to the PACE project, Austria has another lighthouse project focusing on the digital product passport: PASSAT
Dedicated to three specific use cases in the textile, electronics, and ski industries, this project pursues the following goals:
- Supporting companies: Providing targeted support and training for implementing the DPP and establishing a stakeholder group.
- Framework and technology exploration: Development of a generic approach for the DPP and investigation of supporting technologies, particularly data rooms and other solution approaches.
- Policy and standards: Development of recommendations for designing national and international guidelines and standards
Practical demonstration: Development of a minimum viable digital product passport (MVP) and its application to three use cases: textiles, electronics, and the ski industry. - Focus on the circular economy: Promotion of the DPP to encourage sustainable product life cycles, such as reuse and recycling.
More information about the project can be found at: https://digitaler-produkt-pass.at/