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Strategic product data management fosters circular ecosystems that reduce carbon emissions and resource consumption. To this end, legal frameworks are needed to set standards for systematic product transparency and interoperable tracking of materials. Analyzing the EU's Digital Product Passport (DPP), we propose the creation of publicly coordinated product data platforms to complement DPPs.
Abstract
The growing research interest in digital product passports (DPP) and circular economy platforms portends an ecological economic transformation that will require improved strategic product data governance. Using the literature, we explore the technical and policy frameworks required by data-based policy instruments for digital circular ecosystems (e. g., DPPs). We analyze five empirical product life cycle cases to better understand how the strategic governance of product-related data can connect materials and product flows to shape new collaborative circular ecosystems. For this purpose, we provide new governance proposals for modifying European DPPs to enable the systematic tracking of materials.
Keywords
circular economy, data governance, platform, regulation, sustainability
Over the past decade, EU regulators have recognized data as a strategic resource. Hence, we now have a European data law (Streinz 2021), which addresses the strategic role of information. Policy instruments (e. g., mandatory data-sharing and interoperability obligations) are developed to tackle the asymmetric information power of "Big Tech" (Brown 2020). Unfortunately, scant public attention has been paid to data regulations in the context of sustainability transformations. Hence, the European Commission is deploying data governance policies to stimulate the desired ecological transformation. The Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a relevant example. The general idea is that manufacturers should make important product-related data digitally available so that stakeholders can reuse the knowledge and materials involved (Adisorn et al. 2021).
The circular economy approach also highlights the role of data governance in the ecological transformation of the economy. Circular economy scholars tend to view it as a policy tool for supporting circular ecosystems, monitoring ecological costs, and increasing material efficiency throughout product life cycles (Berg and Wilts 2019, Hedberg and Šipka 2021, Kristoffersen et al. 2021). However, there is no current agreement on the specifics of the product data required or on how they should be collected and curated. Instead, 76 projects are under way to provide competing EU DPP formats (Jansen et al. 2022, p....