“The need for basic circularity data on products has always been the driver behind this project. There are many proprietary circular economy indicators out there and they are growing by the day. The problem is that everybody speaks in a slightly different language and that proves to be very costly for the whole system. Luxembourg aims to solve that challenge by providing digital circular economy leadership. We’d like to emphasize that this is an important contribution to the overall ecosystem.”
The Ministry of Economy of Luxembourg and +ImpaKT enable access to circularity data for the built asset industry
The Ministry of Economy of Luxembourg mandated the consulting company +ImpaKT to develop a standardised Product Circularity Data Template that enables easy access to circularity data in the European construction industry.
+ImpaKT is a private consulting company with the mission to raise awareness, promote innovation, and build a network that helps organisations to move towards circular economy.
Need
In the age of circular economy, it is not only resources that need to circulate, but also information. If there is no data associated with a product it is deemed to become waste at its end-of-life. Thus, to assess and promote the circularity aspects of construction products – from raw materials to finished products, from the use phase to recycling and throughout the value chain – reliable, universal, and structured product data is needed.
Challenges
Manufacturers are the most reliable source of data about their products. Yet, to enable the evaluation of products’ circularity, manufacturers need to search and rework their data manually to fit the various formats required by their customers and their product platforms every single time. This is an expensive and difficult process resulting in insufficient availability of data that is critical for reuse and recycling of construction materials and elements.
Solution
In this context, the Ministry of Economy of Luxembourg launched The Circularity Dataset Standardisation Initiative. The main objective is to develop a standardised industrial solution within a regulated framework. This will enable a common language that in turn will provide an efficient and secure exchange of circular product data between construction actors. The initiative aims at developing an industry standard at the European or even international level.
- 1. The Ministry of Economy of Luxembourg launched a call for tender to select a representative to carry out the project: “Develop a proof of concept of industry standards”.
- 2. +ImpaKT was mandated to coordinate the activities to get leading players together and to research the need for Standardized Circularity Datasets. As a result, two dedicated working groups (Datasets Working Group (DWG) and Stakeholders Group) were formed, including key industry stakeholders. Around 100 manufacturing-related organisations from 12 different European countries expressed their interest in the initiative and more than 50% of these actors joined the two working groups.
The main objective of the Datasets Working Group was to develop standardized circularity datasets and methods. The Stakeholders Group was to follow progress and pilot datasets. - 3. The initiative led by +ImpaKT created the specification for a data model – Product Circularity Data Sheet (PCDS) – that will provide standardised and reliable characteristics (data) on product circularity.
The Product Circularity Data Sheet (PCDS)
- 4. +ImpaKT started looking for an IT system to transform all the statements from the Product Circularity Data Sheet (PCDS), a 23 pages word format-specific description model, to a data model – a data template.
- 5. +ImpaKT decided to implement the data dictionary Define because the solution supports standard-based data management and the possibility to create and maintain data templates.
PCDS statements were converted into standardised properties in Define, and the PCDS “light version” was integrated into Define as digital standardised Data Templates. - 6. + ImpaKT selected 3 manufacturers to test this first “light” digital version of the PCDS during the pilot phase, and to that end, a public view of construction object data templates was created.
- 7. The Proof of Concept was validated by the ministry.
Expected results
Today, the PCDS is released to all users across the industry. It consists of an open-source data format from which standardised statements can be extracted and used by other stakeholders and platforms across the supply chain. It is open to everybody and complements rather than competes with circular economy platforms.
A great number of companies such as Arcelor Mittal and Tarkett have integrated the data template model for circularity into their information management systems.
The PCDS aims to save significant costs to manufacturers and their suppliers by providing a standardised approach to sharing product circularity information with their customers. Moreover, by enabling easy access to such information, the PCDS promotes and facilitates the adoption of circularity principles in construction. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is about to start drafting the future international standard ISO 59040 “Product Circularity Data Sheet” (PCDS), through its technical committee ISO/TC 323 “Circular Economy”. A new ISO/TC 323/WG 5 working group, led by Mr. Jérôme Petry (Ministry of the Economy), has recently been created to develop this project. In this context, a call is launched to any expert who would like to get involved in the development process of this international standard.
