Orgalim policy exchange on Sustainable Products legislative Initiative and Digital Product Passport

The SPI is part of the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) and it will bring substantial changes in terms of how sustainability requirements for products are defined and reported in Europe. The bulk of the proposal will consist of broadening the scope of the Ecodesign Directive and the definition of harmonised sustainable principles, such as durability, reusability and carbon footprint. The scope for the SPI will be defined on product by product basis and it will target, in the first stage, priority products as electronics, batteries and packaging.

Regarding the Digital Product Passport, it will be a ‘structured collection of product related data’ through a unique identifier and via a decentralised system linked with the European Dataspace for Smart Circular Applications (EDSCA); the DPP will include information related to sustainability and circularity and the tool will be defined in cross-sectorial basis.

The European Commission expects a positive impact of the implementation of the DPP reinforcing the European internal market, however the Commission is also aware of industry’s concerns that were discussed more in details during the workshop; this includes the governance of the data, the data access rights, the protection of the Intellectual Property (IP) and the need to make the information requirements workable and proportionate to manufacturers and supply chain, especially for SMEs.

Orgalim volunteered to help on the definition of the DPP requirements and considers that the involvement of industry in the whole legislative process will be key to define a successful SPI proposal which is expected to be published in Q4 2021. CECE supports Orgalim’s position paper on SPI and will follow closely the development of the future European Digital Product Passport.