Press Release

DATA4CIRC has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101178152 © Copyright in this document remains vested in the DATA4CIRC Partners PRESS RELEASE - 23.10.2025 DATA4CIRC project shares Insights into Digital Product Passports and EU Research in multi-project webinar. The EU-funded DATA4CIRC research project co-hosted a multi-project webinar on 21st October 2025 drawing together five EU-funded projects to share their expertise on Digital Product Passports (DPPs). They were joined by the RecAL project (as co-hosts), CIRPASS-2 project, COMPASS project. Additionally, keynote speakers were provided by the R-evolve project and the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). The webinar was attended by almost 300 participants from 38 countries across 5 continents, demonstrating the global interest in and impact of the EU’s plans for the introduction of DPPs. As Europe accelerates its transition to a circular economy, DPPs (digital records that carry essential information about a product’s origin, composition, environmental impact, repairability, and recycling potential—accessible throughout the product’s entire lifecycle) are emerging as a cornerstone technology. Transparency is crucial for enabling sustainable production, informed consumption, and efficient recycling, all of which are key to the EU’s climate and resource goals. However, as DPPs may contain sensitive/proprietary information, they must also be secure. Additionally, without the correct infrastructure, DPPs could become burdensome and information remain siloed. For these reasons, effective DPP implementation is complex. EU-funded research projects are at the forefront of developing, piloting, and standardising DPP solutions across a broad range of sectors, such as electronics, the automotive/aeronautics sectors, textiles, and the construction industry. “The Digital Product Passport is a critical enabler of the circular economy. Its success relies on data interoperability, standardised frameworks, and the integration of existing technologies and infrastructures, achievable only through the active collaboration of all actors across circular value networks.” - Wan Li, DATA4CIRC Project, Senior Researcher - Chair of Information and Automation Systems, RWTH Aachen University The Background to the DATA4CIRC Project The European Union’s Circular Economy Action Plan, which is due to be adopted in 2026, sets a target of doubling the rate at which materials are recycled or reused by 2030. This isn’t just about DATA4CIRC has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101178152 © Copyright in this document remains vested in the DATA4CIRC Partners environmental goals: it is important in terms of future jobs, prosperity, and resilience in Europe. The EU manufacturing sector employs approximately 30 million people. Recent global events have underlined the fragility of global supply chains. Manufacturing firms in the EU typically spend 40% of their budgets on materials, so exploiting more circular production processes and improving access to materials can help boost their profitability and protect them from the price fluctuations caused by conflicts, trade wars, or other external events. To help achieve this target, the European Union is investing in research projects to develop innovative technologies/solutions to support circularity for manufacturing. The DATA4CIRC Project The €5.6 million project, which launched in November 2024 and is led by Idener.ai, from Seville, Spain, consists of a consortium of 13 partners from 7 EU countries, plus Japan, is working to establish a data-driven, AI-assisted digital platform, built around the Asset Administration Shell (AAS), that will facilitate the secure sharing of data. Just as shipping containers revolutionised global trade by providing a standard size and format, the AAS standardises how digital product information is packaged and shared across different companies and systems. This will allow the DATA4CIRC to establish a federated data space that can connect to different organisations’ DPP platforms and act as a secure broker between data owners and data users. The DATA4CIRC platform will be tested in 3 real-life use cases: the first will seek to establish a brand-new value chain in agricultural plastics. The second will extend an existing value chain in Waste Electronics, aiming to boost recovery and reuse of spare parts. The third will exploit an existing value chain in the automotive sector, specifically catalytic converters, using digitalisation and DPPs to demonstrate compliance with regulatory standards and open new business opportunities. The full programme of the webinar is available here. A recording of the webinar is available here. Multimedia / Links Website: www.data4circ.eu LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/data4circ LinkedIn Newsletter: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/7342924145342521346 X: https://x.com/Data4Circ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Data4Circ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DATA4CIRC Press Contact: Jonathan Clark DATA4CIRC Project Communication Manager, EIT Manufacturing East GmbH, Vienna, Austria [email protected]