The Digital Product Passport is expected to have a significant impact, Mike McCamon, Executive Director of NFC Forum shares
In London alone, man-made spaces consume over 400 million tons of materials each year. From construction to transport to retail to agriculture, almost every facet of today’s society is contributing to resource consumption around the world, and by 2060, global material use could reach 190 billion tonnes, doubling the usage from 2019. Increased consumption is already having a profound impact on the environment, and if we continue along this path the consequences could be catastrophic.
The Digital Product Passport (DPP) is an initiative of the European Union as part of the Eco-design for Sustainable Product Regulations (ESPR). It is designed to address the growing concern of increased consumption and enable more sustainable practices. Once in place, the DPP legislation will create a digital record that provides comprehensive information about products throughout their entire lifecycle. Access to accurate data on the traceability of a product will equip us with the information needed to, transform the way we reuse, remanufacture, and recycle products, enabling more sustainable outcomes.
The building blocks for a more sustainable future are already being laid and it is imperative that stakeholders are adequately prepared with the right technology to comply with incoming regulations.
One tag; Multiple uses
While some businesses will undoubtedly be looking for a ‘missing piece of the puzzle’ to meet their DPP requirements, Near Field Communication (NFC) provides a solution that uses pieces already in place. As the solution of choice for countless connected device use cases, the majority of businesses and consumers worldwide are already familiar with NFC technology and how to use it.
Hundreds of millions of connected devices, most notability mobile phones, are purchased each year with the ability to read NFC Forum defined tags – it is a baseline technology built into handsets to enable contactless payment. This means that DPP data stored on a tag embedded within a product will be easily accessible through something as ubiquitous as a smartphone. NFC is already in place, meaning there is no need for new technology to be adopted to read and access DPP data.
A key concept of sustainability is using each component to its full potential, and NFC’s capability to enable the DPP embodies this perfectly. NFC is a single chip that already facilitates multiple use cases, including payments, product authentication, digital identity and access control. Adding DPP functionality to the chip would be a near-zero cost approach towards achieving global sustainability goals and comply with future governmental regulations.
Secure data storage and sharing
While DPP data must be readily available to achieve its aims, it must also be secure. If the product data sheet is tampered with, the DPP is rendered meaningless. Meanwhile, if the data carrier is defaced or destroyed, this could mean that the DPP data is inaccessible.
The European Commission currently mandates that DPP data is stored in a decentralised, publicly available web portal. This helps ensure that the data is readily available, however, it relies on the business that manufactures or sells the product to maintain the portal. This brings with it operational costs, and so should business responsible cease to exist, any cloud-based DPP may be lost entirely. Therefore, it is recommended that a product also has an offline data store as well as the online version.
Organisations such as NFC Forum are therefore exploring how to permanently attach DPP data to a product. This would allow a product to retain its own unique DPP data throughout its entire lifecycle. Combining this with the strong attachment rate and anti-tampering mechanisms that NFC can facilitate, DPP data can be kept secure and accessible long into the future.
A standardised solution
It is expected that the DPP will be mandatory across most industries by 2030. This will ensure businesses and consumers can make more sustainable choices, products can be tracked throughout their lifecycle and that a product and its components can be re-used, recycled or their end-of-life can be sustainably managed.
NFC technology is already specified as a leading data carrier for the DPP by countless standards bodies thanks to its slim design, security capabilities, data storage integrity and familiarity to users. However, sustainability is a global issue, and so a global approach is needed. Standardisation is key to establishing a stable data-sharing infrastructure and achieving widespread deployment of the DPP.
These common standards must be accessible, common, and affordable. By taking part in the development of DPP technologies and standards such as NFC Forum’s NFC Digital Product Passport (NDPP), NFC-enabled product designers can help shape the circular economy and ensure that NFC chips, tags and devices work to support more sustainable outcomes. In this way, the NFC industry can provide a seamless, functional and interoperable data carrier that enables DPP data to be easily accessed by businesses and consumers, turning the vision of a more sustainable future into reality.
Author: Mike McCamon, Executive Director of NFC Forum
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