Develop, implement and assess a circular economy oriented product information management system for complex products from cradle to cradle

Instrument/Program eligible areas: 
BELGIUM
CZECH REPUBLIC
DANMARK
GERMANY
EESTI
IRELAND
SPAIN
FRANCE
CROATIA
ITALY
LATVIA
LITHUANIA
LUXEMBOURG
HUNGARY
MALTA
NETHERLANDS
AUSTRIA
POLAND
PORTUGAL
ROMANIA
SLOVENIA
SLOVAKIA
FINLAND
SWEDEN
UNITED KINGDOM
GREECE
CYPRUS
BULGARIA
Call: 

CE-SC5-31-2020

Topic/s: 

The transition to a circular economy requires that the value in products is retained as long as possible. To achieve this, reliable information about the composition of components and materials is needed for health and safety in repair and recycling enterprises and for improved user integration in sustainable product design and in new business models.

Other aspects such as recyclability, dismantlability, recycled content, the sustainability of sourcing of raw materials, security of supply, and ultimately the overall environmental and social performance along the life cycle, are also related to the composition and design of products. If the downstream actors in the value chain, such as consumers, retailers or end-product manufacturers demand this information, it needs to be collected in the whole supply chain upstream. The implementation of resource efficiency benchmarks in products e.g. via Ecodesign or the EU Ecolabel also requires product composition and environmental performance data. The information needs of consumers are of course different from those of manufacturers and recyclers, and suppliers and manufacturers are traditionally worried about excessive transparency and possible violations of proprietary data rights. All this needs to be considered in the design of the information flow in the economic value chain.

Although some manufacturers and suppliers use specific software for internal communication, upstream aggregation and compliance documentation for sectoral product legislation, this does not cover the critical information needs with regard to circularity or the overall life cycle performance. Some SMEs, start-ups, and social and municipal enterprises outside the supply chain would benefit from access to such information management systems, but they have too limited resources to invest in complex and expensive software solutions.

There is thus a need for designing and piloting an information system for raw materials and components in products and their environmental performance that is linked to the material and value flows in an ideally circular system.

The design should be flexible and smart with regard to data volume and conversions and should include the whole flow for a specific business, from raw materials supply via components to the finished product, including customers, repair business, refurbishers, and recyclers.

In addition, the flexibility should allow actors to use the data for compliance reasons, such as REACH or the (future) ECHA database on the presence of hazardous chemicals in articles (ECHA, 2018). It should also allow aggregation and extrapolation with a view to the analysis and mapping of raw material flows and needs in Europe. The concept, the data flow and the specific needs of each actor should be studied in a pilot with operators that are interested in making their business sustainable and future-proof.

Call Budget: 
8 000 000,00€
Opening date: 
3rd Jul 2019
Deadline date: 
5th Feb 2020
3rd Sep 2019
Call typology: 
Call