Enabling Hi-fi audio equipment retailers to adopt
Digital Product Passports with a goal to promote a circular economy
Overview
This project aims to implement Digital Product Passports (DPPs) to support a circular economy, focusing on translating the new regulation into practical applications for retailers in the HiFi audio equipment industry.
Seamless information exchange in the supply chain to deliver value to different stakeholders, with the overarching goal of achieving a circular economy.
A strategy and a B2B Saas Digital Product Passport platform for retailers, enhancing customer retention and creating new revenue opportunities while promoting sustainable practices.
Hifi Audio equipment Retailers
Consumers
Team
3 Service designers
Keywords
Circular economy, EU Regulation Compliance, Digital Product Passports, Information exchange, Product traceability, Hi-fi Audio, B2B Service, Top-down approach
A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a digital dataset containing comprehensive information about a product’s lifecycle.
The DPP is designed to close the gap between consumer demands for transparency and the current lack of reliable product data.
The EU Circular Economy Action Plan mandated the implementation of Digital Product Passports for any product being imported or exported in the EU.
While the circular economy grows in popularity as an alternative economic model, human consumption of natural resources is growing in tandem, causing global rates of circularity to fall year after year.
a 21% drop
in the Global circularity rate over the course of 5 years.
The share of secondary materials consumed by the global economy has decreased from 9.1% in 2018 to 7.2% in 2023
>50 million tonnes
e-waste is the world’s fastest growing solid waste stream.
The global Audio Equipment market size is expected to expand at a CAGR of 5.43% during the forecast period by 2027.
Hence, the need for sustainable practices in the audio industry is more pressing than ever.
Stride Towards Circularity :
How Digital Product Passports can
revolutionize the electronics industry
Informed Choices:
DPPs empower consumers by providing insights into a device’s environmental impact.
Product Authenticity:
Consumers can verify the authenticity of their purchases using DPPs.
Material Transparency:
Brands can use DPPs to share material details, building consumer trust and enabling informed material choices.
Design for Circular economy:
Brands can create products that are easier to repair, recycle, or repurpose.
Supply Chain Efficiency
Manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers can access consistent data, improving collaboration and reducing waste.
for Retailers & Resellers
Product Lifecycle Insights:
DPPs provide retailers with lifecycle insights, aiding in inventory management, marketing, and customer engagement.
Circular Business Models:
DPPs encourage retailers to explore circular business models, such as take-back programs or resale initiatives.
TAZAAR is a technology company that specialises in creating Digital Product Logbooks, designed to capture the lifetime ownership and service history of premium quality electronics. They help their clients achieve readiness for adopting Digital Product Passports. Currently they cater to manufacturers and consumers.
Taking the top down approach…
A top-down approach was used to see how this regulation can be implemented. The focus was the B2B service, as businesses need to facilitate consumer actions to close the loop and achieve a circular economy.
To understand how data is collected in a Digital Product Passport, an in-depth analysis of the supply chain and the stakeholders was conducted. This research enabled to identify critical gaps within the system.
Gaps identified
Manufacturers have all necessary product information, but it is
fragmented and lacks standardization.
Retailers receive this information,
but it isn't communicated
down the supply chain.
Recyclers can't access crucial information for responsible
recycling and disposal.
Recyler
UPSTREAM
DOWNSTREAM
Recyler
Manufacturer
Consumer
Retailer
Retailers: a crucial link
Retailers are a crucial point of contact between the upstream and downstream stakeholders of the supply chain.
For seamless information exchange within the entire supply chain, they need to be able to effectively continue this chain of communication.
Hence, the focus was on addressing the unique needs of retailers, along with regulatory compliance.
UPSTREAM
DOWNSTREAM
Recyler
Manufacturer
Consumer
Retailer
How might we
enable high-end audio equipment retailers and
dealers
to leverage Digital Product Passports as
a service
to integrate product traceability
and foster lifelong customer engagement?
Research process
With DPP legislation still in its early stages and set to evolve, the research followed iterative and lean methodologies. Testing began early, with research running continuously and simultaneously throughout the project.
Research insights
Methods and tools used to arrive at the insights :
Stakeholder mapping, assumption mapping to understand impact & certainty of our assumptions, journey mapping & service blueprints to understand the current retailer journey, information exchange mapping to understand stakeholder interaction and actions, empathy mapping to understand and analyse benefits of Tazaar's product to retailers.
Assumptions regarding the
Digital Product Passport regulation…
As the DPP legislation is in the early stages and is bound to keep evolving, the solution was designed by taking into
consideration certain assumptions. We designed to deliver value to our two key stakeholders: retailers and the planet.
Translating research insights into the solution...
The solution comprises of a strategy to adapt Tazaar’s digital product passport technology to the needs
of retailers. The strategy is translated this into a digital platform that addresses value creation through:
The retailer's platform is currently designed for tablets and will be used during customer interactions to centralize product information, streamline customer support, and facilitate communication with manufacturers and recyclers.
Lets take a look at a few of the features of the new platform for retailers..
Customer Retention
Provenance
Origin and service history of the product allows the retailer to prove
its provenance.
This is a concern important to consumers buying expensive products like
Hifi audio equipments.
Circularity
Extending
Product Life
The platform provides retailers with up-to-date information on the repairability and replaceability of each component
This helps reduce number of actions and time needed to resolve consumer issues
Retailers can not only provide effective repair services but also promote longer use of the product
Revenue Opportunities
Optimising
Product Usage
How would a consumer use a Digital Product Passport?
Along with the platform for retailers, we developed a prototype of the Digital Product Passport for second-hand consumers.
The prototype was tested during a public event to demonstrates how different stakeholders in the supply chain see different amounts of information.
The aim of this prototype was to test what information is relevant to the consumers and how motivated they would be to use it.
Imagine you are a visiting a Hifi audio retail store to buy a
second-hand turntable. You are concerned about the previous users, product condition,etc.
The retailer shows you the turntable which has a QR code to scan. This code takes you to the Digital Product Passport of this second-hand item that you are interested in.
When you scan the code , you see :
So, how is value created for the stakeholders?
Let's assume the retailers have adopted the Digital Product Passports.
Now, how would the ideal scenario look like?
How will it help to achieve a circular economy?
