ecosystem and Darty are Launching the First Digital Product Passports for Appliances

The electronics industry faces mounting pressures to enhance product durability and meet evolving sustainability regulations. With the French AGEC law and forthcoming EU regulations such as the ESPR, there’s a need for innovative solutions that improve lifecycle management, extend product lifespans, and support a circular economy. Through Digital Product Passports (DPPs), ecosystem, Fnac Darty, and Arianee are setting a new standard for transparency, compliance, and sustainable product use.

Beginning in October 2024, this large scale, two year first implementation with ecosystem and Fnac Darty introduces Digital Product Passports for appliances, leveraging the Arianee protocol’s open-source blockchain infrastructure.

Project Goals

• Extend the lifespan of products
• Collect data on the lifecycle of products
• Facilitate the maintenance of products
• Provide access to product information
• Compliance with the AGEC law
• Prepare for Digital Product Passport regulation (ESPR) 

‍Addressing these Goals

To achieve these goals, there are three prerequisites: 

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1. Identify Products at Specific Lifecycle Points

Once EEEs hit the market, tracking their lifecycle events - repairs, resale, and recycling - becomes complex due to limited monitoring tools.Through this collaboration, each electronic product receives a unique digital passport, allowing stakeholders to track the device’s status at key stages, from manufacturing to end-of-life.

2. Maintain a history of the entire product lifecycle 

Fragmentation in the value chain limits stakeholders’ ability to maintain a consolidated history for each product, impacting repair, reuse, and recycling efforts.DPPs act as digital maintenance logs, consolidating key data -  specifications, repairs, and environmental impact - into an accessible record that ensures continuity and benefits all participants.

3. Leverage an Open, Interoperable Infrastructure for all stakeholders in a supply chain

Effective collaboration requires a non-proprietary, interoperable system that allows all stakeholders, from manufacturers to recyclers, to share and access data securely.Built on Arianee’s open-source protocol, the system is designed to support multiple stakeholders. 

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Open and Interoperable Digital Product Passports 

The blockchain foundation of Arianee’s DPP ensures an open and interoperable solution.

Our solution enables these stakeholders to collaborate seamlessly using a unified standard. It generates a Digital ID that all parties can utilize, allowing stakeholders, depending on their permissions, to read or update the DPP’s history. 

Brands, for example, can control access to proprietary product information, sharing only necessary details with repair partners. Blockchain ensures each update is secure, tamper-proof, and automatically logged, making the Digital Product Passport a reliable and trustworthy tool for all involved. 

Our DPPs are built using decentralized technology, leveraging public blockchains and their standards. The core of our technology is open-source, ensuring there’s no lock-in risk. 

Arianee’s API Solutions for Seamless Integration

With easy-to-integrate APIs, these solutions allow to implement Digital Product Passports with minimal development, enabling quick adoption.

The passports can be created at different stages of the product lifecycle, including during assembly, distribution, collection, and repair for resale in the second-hand market. 

Extending digital passports to products throughout their lifecycle—beyond just new items to include those in circulation—boosts transparency and circularity. It helps track a product’s history, condition, and repairs, fostering trust in resale and refurbishment. This approach supports the circular economy by extending product lifespans, reducing waste, and maximizing value at every stage.

What’s next

This project, largely funded by ecosystem, also involves the brand Beko and the Envie network in addition to Fnac Darty, with the goal of equipping approximately two million products in the next two years. 

We aim to involve as many stakeholders in the sector and members of the eco-organization as possible to expand the network and maximize data on the traceability, reuse, and recycling of WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment). A dedicated working group within the Arianee association will ensure effective governance of the data and platform.

ecosystem is a non-profit organisation accredited by the French Public Authorities to collect, decontaminate and recycle household waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), professional equipment (professional WEEE), lamps and small fire extinguishers.

Fnac Darty is a European leader in the distribution of cultural goods, leisure, technical products, domestic appliances and services - a leading retailer in the electronics and household equipment sector. They are committed to helping customers adopt sustainable practices: use better, consumer better and repair more, with a target of 2.5 million products repaired per year by 2025. 

The project led by ecosystem aims to launch a large-scale experiment of the Digital Product Passport (DPP) with the company Fnac Darty as a flagship partner. This digital passport will track each electrical and electronic device throughout its lifecycle, ensuring transparency regarding its features, durability, environmental impact, and the recording of repairs made. 

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