Aileen Ryan, President and CEO of RAIN Alliance, offers commentary on the recent Digital Product Passport Joint Statement published by RAIN Alliance and GS1, reflecting on the critical role that close collaboration between key players will have supporting a sustainable circular economy.

Sustainability is a global concern. In every nation and in every sector of business, the concern of environmentally conscious business practices is being raised, and this has led to the development of a number of significant regulatory requirements. In Europe, this has manifested itself in the form of the European Union’s Digital Product Passport (DPP).

Stemming from the 2024 Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), the DPP will require comprehensive data points to be collected, stored and made easily accessible throughout a product’s lifecycle. This information will then be used variously, to improve traceability, inform decisions about refurbishment, reuse and renting, and how to sustainably manage the product’s ‘end-of-life’.

The end goal for this initiative is to create a comprehensive, united ecosystem that is readily accessible by all stakeholders. This will include trillions of devices of all shapes, sizes and functions. It therefore goes without saying that this cannot be achieved by any one company; it will require close collaboration between a number of stakeholder groups and data carriers each bringing their own strengths to the value chain.

In short, the circular economy is only possible through collaboration.

Our recent joint statement with GS1, a neutral and not-for-profit supply chain standards organisation, has been drafted with this in mind. Both organisations recognise the critical role that standardized product identification, data exchange and RFID-enabled digitalisation will play in enabling industry compliance. Our collaborative efforts across multiple industries have been enacted with the express purpose of enabling interoperability and improving supply chain visibility.

GS1’s identification standards such as GTINs, GIAIs, and Digital Link can work in conjunction with RAIN technology to enable automatic and scalable access to DPP data with individual item-level precision across complex supply chains. The benefits of these combined solutions are already being harnessed by our shared members, including Avery Dennison, Decathlon, EM Micro, HID, Impinj, Michelin, Nedap, NXP, SML, Tageos, Trimco Group and Zebra Technologies, delivering value to use cases including:

  • Retail – Facilitating item level traceability that allows stores to conduct inventory seamlessly with the same tag that holds a products DPP data.
  • Textiles – Providing a durable, machine washable data carrier that will not degrade or fade with each wear, meaning garments can be sorted and recycled optimally at the end of their life.
  • Logistics – Helping to create efficient supply chains for both global and local trade with enhanced traceability backed by a digital chain of custody that supports seamless, efficient global trade across countless sectors.
  • Automotive – Holding information on the composition of each tyre and its role as a drive or steer tire, meaning both retreading the tyre to extend its life and recycling the tyre when it needs replacing can be done seamlessly.

While this initiative is being pioneered in the EU, other regions are expected to follow. Sustainability and climate change are key global priorities for society, governments and businesses around the world, and so now is the time to align with these initiatives.

RAIN Alliance is committed to working alongside organisations such as GS1 to proliferate circular economies at scale. The Alliance is also a liaison to the CEN/CENELEC Joint Technical Committee 24 (JTC24) – the group that is setting standards for the DPP Framework and System. We serve as an important representative for a number of industries, helping them align with the objectives of the Digital Product Passport, while driving awareness and fostering market adoption of RAIN technology, aiming to create a smarter and more sustainable world by interconnecting trillions of objects simply and inexpensively.

Contact us to find out how you can get involved.