CCB Magazine

Susanne Guth-Orlowski: “There needs to be an easy entry point for decision-making”

Photo: © Foto Naus

A Digital Product Passport is to be introduced to promote more sustainable, circular and repairable products. How useful can it be? Dr. Susanne Guth-Orlowski is a technical advisor to the Global Battery Alliance, external expert to the European Commission for the Digital Product Passport and founder of the consulting agency 4TheRecord - we spoke to her about the passport of the future.
 

INTERVIEW  Boris Messing    

CCB Magazine: Hello Ms. Guth-Orlowski. In December 2023, the EU agreed to find a regulation for more sustainable, more circular and repairable products - the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). The Digital Product Passport (DPP) is to be a key lever for this. What is this all about?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski: Basically, the Digital Product Passport is there to make it easier to reuse, repair or recycle products at the end of their life cycle. The aim is to improve the circularity and lifespan of products. The aim is also to improve manufacturing conditions. The ESPR was the second initiative to require the Digital Product Passport by law. The first was the Battery Directive. And in the battery supply chain, we have particular difficulties with manufacturing conditions and the procurement of raw materials. This involves child labor, a lack of safety precautions, severe environmental pollution, corruption, etc. The DPP is also intended to make this more transparent and combat it. Ultimately, this transparency should enable the customer to make better purchasing decisions.

CCB Magazine:What information should the DPP contain and how can this information be viewed along the value chain?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski:The information in the DPP varies from product to product. In general, however, it includes criteria such as manufacturing conditions, CO2 footprint or water consumption, but also the durability, reusability or recyclability of a product. Not all information can be viewed along the entire value chain, except for the general information mentioned above. In principle, it depends on the type of product, what will be visible to whom and exactly where you are in the value chain. The EU Commission refers to this as the need-to-know principle. Information on the exact components of a product is important in order to know which parts or components can be reused or how a product can be repaired. But this is also business-critical data that not everyone should be allowed to see. This all needs to be carefully weighed up.

The Digital Product Passport is designed to make it easier to reuse, repair or recycle products at the end of their life cycle. Manufacturing conditions are also to be improved. This transparency should enable customers to make better purchasing decisions

CCB Magazine:How and where is the DPP data stored?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski:The EU Commission has decided that the data should be stored decentrally. This means that the product data remains with the respective manufacturer, who issues, can control and must also take responsibility for this data. The DPP is the first political instrument ever in which data is stored decentrally. This saves bureaucracy and makes cyber attacks more difficult.

CCB Magazine:And how do I as a customer receive the information from a DPP?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski:The customer accesses the Digital Product Passport via a data carrier, which can be a QR code on the product or an integrated NFC or RFID chip, for example. The customer reads this and is shown the product passport data in a similar way to a website.

CCB Magazine:The DPP is therefore based on the idea that information on the social and ecological production conditions of a product will lead to better purchasing decisions on the part of customers in order to make products more circular in the long term. There is a parallel to the animal welfare label or Nutri-Score in the food industry. But who can guarantee that it will work in the end? What is this assumption based on?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski:This is a crucial task that we are still working on solving. Let's take the battery as an example. In the end, the aim is to develop a kind of scoring system. The most diverse aspects of a battery are now being put on the table and evaluated in a detailed process. As already mentioned, this concerns not only the production or material composition, but also the CO2 footprint and the working and manufacturing conditions. All of these qualitative criteria must ultimately result in an overall score that evaluates the sustainability of a product. This means that in the production of a battery, each work process is evaluated at the end and translated into a score according to defined standards - the individual scores or qualitative attributes of the work processes are expressed in an overall score. As a customer, you can then easily and directly see how high the score of a product is and thus assess its sustainability. But it remains to be seen what the customer actually does with this information.

The customer accesses the Digital Product Passport via a data carrier. In the end, there will be a kind of scoring, in which not only the production or material composition, but also the CO2 footprint and the working and manufacturing conditions of a product are qualitatively assessed

CCB Magazine:The DPP builds its effect on the consumer's mature choice. The customer uses the score to decide whether or not to buy a particular product. However, this does not automatically mean that product manufacturers are forced to produce in a more environmentally or socially sustainable way. Isn't that too weak a lever?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski:At the moment, we first need to establish this construct and determine the status quo. The next step could then be for the EU to no longer allow certain products below a score of, say, 40 - and thus exert pressure on manufacturers. Or products that consume too much CO2 during production could be taxed extra. But of course, the question is how the customer will decide if they can see from a QR code that child labor has played a role in the supply chain of a product. What do we do then? Do we ignore it? Do we not buy the product? Another option would be for the EU to stop allowing such products onto the market, but people want to be expected, as you say, to make responsible decisions for themselves. This is where the DPP becomes political!

CCB Magazine:The DPP will initially be mandatory for the production of batteries from February 2027. Other product groups are then to follow, such as textiles, furniture and toys. Does this mean that every designer or fashion designer will have to have created a DPP for their goods by then?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski:Exactly. But there may also be a certain threshold below which you don't need a DPP, say a fashion designer who only has a very small collection or something. That hasn't been decided yet.

CCB Magazine:To what extent could the creative industries be affected by the requirements of the DPP?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski:It depends on what is being manufactured. The new requirements can affect ceramic products, furniture, textiles, paper and glass products, aluminum, plastic, etc. In other words, they affect anyone who manufactures something and belongs to a product category that is regulated by the ESPR.

The supply and price models will diversify. Leasing, sharing, product-as-a-service - this is the direction we could be heading in, and depending on the product, it could well become cheaper for the individual customer

CCB Magazine:What costs can be saved or will products become more expensive as a result?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski:It is unlikely to become cheaper, but there will be other pricing models than buying. Leasing, sharing, product-as-a-service - this is the direction we could be heading in and, depending on the product, it could well be cheaper for individual customers if a product is shared or borrowed rather than bought. The supply and price models will diversify.

CCB Magazine:In the long term, the DPP and the ESPR should lead to producers manufacturing more sustainable products and consumers preferring to choose such products. If products are more durable, easier to repair and can be reused in whole or in part, what does this mean for the economy as a whole? Will there be a decline in production? Could a new infrastructure emerge along the value chain that focuses on the repair and recycling of products?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski:The idea is that products should be of higher quality. And, as I said, they are no longer necessarily bought, but borrowed, for example. Keyword product-as-a-service. This is very feasible for many products. ZF builds clutches from materials that last for around ten years, but the clutches could actually be built in such a way that they can be replaced again and again and installed in a new vehicle. This would mean that no or very few new raw materials would be needed. ZF is currently looking into offering its clutches as a product service instead of selling them. Clutches could then be manufactured to an even higher quality for a very long service life. This would save ZF costs and raw materials and they could reclaim the clutches from the customer for reuse. Seen in this light, a new form of economy is actually emerging here that incorporates repair and recycling to a greater extent.

CCB Magazine:How optimistic are you that the DPP will actually lead to more circularity and sustainability?

Susanne Guth-Orlowski:I think the key to the whole thing is how the information is presented to the customer. It has to be in a form that can be interpreted quickly so that they are prepared to read and evaluate this information. I'm thinking, for example, of reading the DPP via an app, in which you can then clearly see how a product is classified under various aspects and preferences. In any case, there needs to be an easy entry point for decision-making.

Category: Innovation & Vision