MC2 - Circular Economy and Digital Product Passports

This course introduces Digital Product Passports as concrete tools for enabling transparency, traceability, and circularity across product lifecycles. It combines circular economy principles with digital technologies, lifecycle data, and EU regulatory frameworks to show how DPPs work in practice, not just in theory. Students explore real sector examples, governance and data ethics challenges, and the risks of greenwashing, while learning how to design and assess DPP systems that support compliance, credible sustainability claims, and informed decision-making in complex value chains.

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Strategic & Analytical Capabilities

Digital & Governance Competence

Leadership & Innovation Capacity

Your 13-Week Journey

Introduction to Digital Product Passports, their regulatory context, core requirements, and design principles.

Exploring organisational, technical, and regulatory barriers, alongside opportunities for innovation and value creation.

Developing a Digital Product Passport using standards and methods illustrated through the textile sector.

Embedding lifecycle assessment indicators into DPPs to support transparency and regulatory compliance.

Analysing sector-specific drivers and obstacles shaping DPP implementation across industries.

Exploring how DPPs evolve into Digital Product Service System Passports through PSS concepts.

Understanding DPPs as tools for lifecycle tracking, interoperability, and collaboration in circular systems.

Applying RFID, IoT, and blockchain to validate and structure product information across supply chains.

Examining EU policy frameworks and aligning DPP design with legal and regulatory requirements.

Using DPPs to support credible sustainability communication and mitigate greenwashing risks.

Reviewing real-world DPP solutions, data flows, and stakeholder collaboration models.

Assessing blockchain as an implementation option and its suitability for specific DPP use cases.

Building trust in DPP ecosystems through technical and organisational data-sharing mechanisms.

Week 1 — Systems in Transition

See the world in systems.

Learn to rethink linear vs circular economies and explore planetary boundaries.

Week 2 — The Digital–Circular Nexus

Discover how tech enables sustainability.

Explore how AI, IoT, and data power circular innovation.

Week 3 — Policy as Infrastructure

Understand Europe’s circular blueprint.

Dive into the EU Green Deal, CEAP, and Digital Europe frameworks.

Week 4 — Designing for Re-entry

Design for durability, reuse, and remanufacturing.

Learn how digital twins and simulation tools extend product lifecycles.

Week 5 — Tracking Resources Through Data

Follow materials in motion.

Understand how IoT and data infrastructures create transparency in supply chains.

Week 6 — Blockchain for Accountability

Trust through transparency.

Explore blockchain’s potential for tracking, verification, and ethical assurance.

Week 7 — Learning Loops with AI

Let data drive regeneration.

See how AI and machine learning enable adaptive circular decision-making.

Week 8 — Cognitive Factories

Meet the new industrial symbiosis.

Examine how robotics and smart manufacturing create circular production systems.

Week 9 — Reverse Intelligence

Close the loop through recovery.

Explore reverse logistics, digital disassembly, and resource recovery networks.

Week 10 — Measuring Circularity

Turn data into progress.

Use metrics, KPIs, and dashboards to track circular performance.

Week 11 — Financing the Regenerative Future

Empower innovation.

Discover how deep-tech, investment, and valuation models support circular ventures.

Week 12 — Ethics and Mindsets

Lead with responsibility.

Reflect on ethics, human–machine collaboration, and the competences for circular leadership.

Week 13 — 2040 and Beyond

Imagine the future you want to build.

Learn to rethink linear vs circular economies and explore planetary boundaries.