Luxembourg initiative the Product Circularity Data Sheet (PCDS) equips the companies with the tools to ensure that the components they build can have a second life. Project leader Jérôme Petry explains how the PCDS is evolving from a ministry pilot to a stand-alone company.
How would you describe the PCDS?
Today it’s very difficult to get information about the circular properties of products. Typically, the original equipment manufacturer who puts the product on the market has to go backwards in the supply chain to fetch the information. It’s very time consuming and therefore expensive. And people don’t always understand the questions because terms are understood differently between different actors in the supply chain. At some point you arrive at the point where people say ‘I don’t want to share this information because it’s my IP, it’s trade secrets.’ The idea is to put the market together on the PCDS – Product Circularity Data Sheet – so that the data sheet flows with the product.
How do you store this information?
The tool itself is based on true-false statements. The detailed information behind that is to be kept at the premises of the producer. And by doing that we create a decentralised system.
How will you verify that the claims are true?
We’re setting up an IT data exchange platform to enable the exchange of information only on a need-to-know basis. At the end of the lifecycle of a product, if you want to repair, recycle or refurbish and you need specific information about a property, you have the PCDS. And you can get in touch with the producer through the platform.
How will you ensure that the PCDS is used correctly?
We’ve an international standard developing around PCDS making sure it’s well understood how it is set up and managed. It explains how you reply to the statements, and makes sure that the common language and definitions are explained, so that everyone has a shared understanding. By having that, we allow and enable third party audits, which can be made at the company itself.
Who will be responsible for auditing the PCDS?
It depends on what you define with your customer base. We allow any kind of audit. First-party, second-party and, of course, third-party audits, where you need an external body to verify claims. We allow several audits so that we can enable SMEs to join the effort.
“Every week we’ve new requests from people wanting to try it”
Jérôme Petry
How will you take the PCDS global?
Our idea is to focus on an international standard to make sure we have as many countries involved as possible, specifically the countries where products are produced. I’m thinking of SouthEast Asia, India and Turkey, countries which often don’t enter these regulatory considerations whether it’s European or American regulation.
Tell us more about the recent partnership with American firm Toxnot platform?
Toxnot has a bill of materials platform where they have companies track the regulatory requirements on products and also automatically set up those kinds of reports. They were part of the initiative from the beginning and they really see the advantage of the PCDS.
How has this project evolved since the 2019 launch?
We tried the tool inside different value chains to get feedback from all the players and see how they understand the questions. Every week we’ve new requests from people wanting to try it. We also extended it to different supply chains because at the beginning we had mainly construction, paper industry and furniture. And now we have expanded it to automotive, textile and electronics.
Tell us about the ISOnorm that you’re creating.
That was started in 2020, when we entered the technical committee 323, which is handling topics around circular economy. There we introduced a new work item proposal that was put to vote and positively accepted. Since April 2021, Luxembourg has been the official editor of a future norm ISO/PWI 59040 about the PCDS with the secretariat led by ILNAS.
Who and what does this norm apply to?
An ISOnorm is there for worldwide application but they’re voluntary. They become so popular they are almost de facto norms. It’s like saying ‘if you’re not ISO 9000 I won’t do business with you because I know a company up to that standard is worth doing business with.’ We hope to reach that level of maturity through this ISO standard. The ISOnorm should be published officially in early 2024.
The PCDS has been co-created by 50 companies from 12 different countries. How do you plan to scale up?
We’re setting a new milestone this year: we want to externalise the initiative from the ministry. We’re doing an external analysis on how to create a stand-alone company and we hope to have an announcement later this year. That company will then commercialise the PCDS and make the community of early adopters grow exponentially.
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