Circular Economy including Digital Product Passport

The project contribution in terms of the CWA under development will support SMEs that want to or are required legally to have a DPP for their products, which is a majority of SMEs in Europe. Close to 30 product categories are expected to be mandated to have a DPP in the mid-term future. To ensure the CWA effort is impactful for SMEs consideration is made of CEN-CENELEC GUIDE 17: Guidance for writing standards taking into account SME needs (2010). The impact on these SMEs is expected in terms of accelerating their journey to develop and set up their Digital Product Passport. By providing a concise guidance document that has been developed as a CWA pre-standard for understanding the scope, context, potentials and design and implementation decisions for Digital product passports.

Relevant for any size organisation that produces or modifies ICT products that are part, involved in any stage, of the circular economy. Particularly, this is very important for social enterprises in the business of repair, refurbishment and recycling. This is the case, for instance, of the European RReuse.org association that groups social enterprises with more than 100.000 jobs.

Especially SMEs lack sufficient funds to develop the internal capabilities to transition to circular business models. Bringing the ISO 59000 family of standards in line with European policies and regulations makes it not just easier to fulfil legal requirements but to also go beyond short-term requirements and gain a competitive advantage by transitioning to circular business models.

Despite the fact that 95% of industries are composed of SMEs, there is a significant underrepresentation of this organisation's viewpoint on standards development. I am the liaison officer of the Small Business Standards in all the TCs at ISO. I contribute to giving a voice to European SMEs in standardisation at the European and international levels. In addition, to provide comments in the meetings I promote the use of the compatibility test of the SBS and collaborate in the workshops to facilitate the mutual understanding among the industry and the SDOs.