Implementing a Green Deal is a top priority for the new leadership of the European Union. An outline for the ambitious set of regulation and industrial politics was presented in December 2019 and the overarching goals and benchmarks are supposed to be written into laws and regulation.
Product passporting is a key element in this flagship program to deliver on the goals, including the European commitment to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050. According to the Green Deal outline, the Commission will in March 2020 adopt an EU industrial strategy to address the twin challenge of the green and the digital transformation to leverage the potential of the digital transformation as a key enabler for reaching the objectives.
Together with the industrial strategy, a new circular economy action plan is set out to modernise the economy. According to the Commission “a key aim of the new policy framework will be to stimulate the development of lead markets for climate neutral and circular products, in the EU and beyond.”
Therefore, the circular economy action plan will include a ‘sustainable products’ policy to support the circular design of all products based on a common methodology and principles. It will foster new business models as the EU is setting minimum requirements to prevent environmentally harmful products from being placed on the EU market. Extended producer responsibility will also be strengthened.
The circular economy action plan will also include measures to encourage businesses to offer, and to allow consumers to choose, reusable, durable and repairable products.
Specifically, consumer policy “will help to empower consumers to make informed choices and play an active role in the ecological transition. New business models based on renting and sharing goods and services will play a role as long as they are truly sustainable and affordable.
In this context, the EU pledges to combat greenwashing and identifies digital product passporting as a key instrument in this regard:
“Reliable, comparable and verifiable information also plays an important part in enabling buyers to make more sustainable decisions and reduces the risk of ‘green washing’. Companies making ‘green claims’ should substantiate these against a standard methodology to assess their impact on the environment. The Commission will step up its regulatory and non-regulatory efforts to tackle false green claims. Digitalisation can also help improve the availability of information on the characteristics of products sold in the EU. For instance, an electronic product passport could provide information on a product’s origin, composition, repair and dismantling possibilities, and end of life handling.”
The Commission stresses that public authorities, including the EU institutions, should lead by example and ensure that their procurement is green. To ensure this, further draft legislation and guidance on green public purchasing will be presented aiming to privilege green products and providers.
TrueTwins is designed to help brands and producers deliver on upcoming regulation requesting digital product passporting.