Digital Product Passport - a BusinessEurope position paper

Key messages

• BusinessEurope welcomes the objective of the DPP, as a potential enabler of the circular economy. The lack of information transfer across the value chains is one of the challenges to the circular economy today, and the upcoming DPP proposal could facilitate the flow of information to improve the circularity and reparability of a product throughout its lifecycle. The DPP is also an opportunity for developing new circular markets and business services.
• To be effective, the EU business community recommends the Commission to respect the following five principles when developing its DPP proposal:
  • Follow the “need to know” and “data minimisation” principles, taking into account the costs and benefits of data sharing from both a circularity and competitiveness points of view.
  • The disclosure of data should be limited to circular purposes and tailored according to specific product groups and recipients’ needs. Adequate impact assessments would inform this identification process.
  • Disclosure of sensitive and business critical information must be avoided, while data security needs to be guaranteed. Robust system for protection of the data must become part of the DPP policy to avoid its misuse and damage to value-chains.
  • A decentralised system has the potential to transfer up-to-date information along value chains. To prevent duplication and limit administrative burden, existing databases should be made interoperable.
  • The DPP should support a level playing field, including by means of effective market surveillance and incorporating the needs and peculiarities of SMEs.