Circular Economy

iPoint offers solutions for every stage of a product's lifecycle – from design to production and use to recycling and reuse.

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Collect, track, manage, process, and report product-, component-, and materials-related data across the entire lifecycle of your products and your whole value creation network
Assess the environmental, health and safety-related impact of your products over their lifecycle and implement circular business models
Create transparency concerning the origin and chemical composition of your products and their components

Design, manufacture, and track circular products

Circular product strategies, requirements, and business models are increasingly influencing corporate approaches as well as policy landscapes around the globe.

A successful transition from the prevailing linear to a closed-loop circular economic system requires that everyone involved has reliable information about the products, components, and materials along their entire life cycle – in the form of digital data.

iPoint's solutions for digitalized life cycles
Since our founding in 2001, iPoint has been constantly expanding the iPoint Group and its portfolio to realize its vision of building an integrated digital platform for the Circular Economy. As one of the pioneers in Digital Circular Economy, iPoint offers solutions for every phase in a product’s life cycle – from design to production and use to recycling and reuse.

iPoint’s circular perspective envisages a continuous, digital system lifecycle management process that supports regulatory compliance as well as the sustainability of products, value chains, and brands for companies of all sizes and various industries.

More and more companies – including SMEs as well as Fortune Global 500 companies – are turning to iPoint for support to sustain their competitive advantage by scaling up their efforts to apply circular strategies in the design, manufacturing, and reuse of products

The iPoint Suite offers solutions for the entire product life cycle. As the best partner for fully digitalized life cycles of compliant and truly sustainable products, we support you on your journey from compliance to sustainability – wherever you are.

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Front-runners and more and more mainstream economic players are scaling up their efforts to accelerate the transition towards the circular economy and benefit from the significant economic, social and environmental advantages of this business model, which contrasts with the traditional ‘take-make-use-dispose‘ linear economic production and consumption model. In total, it is estimated that the transition to a circular economy represents a US$1 trillion opportunity for the global economy.

Circular economy metrics
To quantify the circularity of a product or company, circular economy data – such as recovery rates, renewable energy rates, water circularity, recycling efficiency, lifespan, etc. – is relevant.

Circular economy metrics are indicators that are based on calculation methodologies including such circular economy data that indicate a degree of circularity. Examples are:

The Material Circularity Indicator (MCI) of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Circular material productivity, e.g. used by the WBCSD

Benefits

Track the journeys of products, components, and materials and make the resulting data securely accessible to all relevant stakeholders
Collect, track, manage, process, and report product-, component-, and materials-related data across the entire lifecycle of your products and your whole value creation network
Assess the environmental, health and safety-related impact of your products over their lifecycle and implement circular business models
Create transparency concerning the origin and chemical composition of your products and their components

Features

Systems integration
Digital twin integration
Product or material passports
Blockchain / DLT
Traceability
Data & Cloud services
Process automation
Big Data & business analytics

Functionalities

Design and track products fit for the circular economy
Increase circular material use rate
Decrease your company’s material footprint
Establish a continuous, digital system lifecycle management process
Achieve environmentally sound management of chemicals and all wastes throughout their life cycle in accordance with international frameworks
Ensure compliance with national and supranational action plans, programmes, and policies concerning sustainable consumption and production

Discover the iPoint Suite

iPoint Compliance – Manage what you measure

Manage and ensure the compliance of your products globally
Save time and effort by fully automating and integrating iPoint Compliance with your business processes
Improve your Supply Chain Integration and Risk Management
Match your strategy with your operations

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iPoint Product Sustainability – Integrate LCA into your business

Manage sustainability and ensure continuous improvement
Create business opportunities by knowing the impact of your products
Benefit from combining compliance and sustainability
Lower production costs and increase your company's image

> Discover iPoint Product Sustainability

iPoint Conflict Minerals – Source responsibly

Manage and ensure the conflict minerals status of your products globally
Save time and effort by fully automating and integrating iPoint Conflict Minerals with your business processes
Increase the efficiency of your supply chain integration and risk management
Improve your smelter management

> Discover iPoint Conflict Minerals

iPoint Supply Chain Survey – Know your suppliers

Collect data – not only answers
Easily adapt to your growing needs
Track and analyze your supplier responses
Be prepared for upcoming challenges

> Discover iPoint Supply Chain Survey

Digital Circular Economy

VIDEO

Towards the Digital Circular Economy

Webinar

In this webinar Joerg Walden and Prof. Rupert Baumgartner together with his team from the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Sustainable Product Management at the University of Graz provide insight into the current state of research on the digital circular economy.

Watch the video

What is the Circular Economy Action Plan?

The new Circular Economy Action Plan – released by the European Commission on March 11, 2020, is one of the main building blocks of the European Green Deal. Treating digital technologies such as digital product passports as major drivers to the transition to the Circular Economy, the Circular Economy Action Plan consists of 35 legislative and non-legislative initiatives, which the Commission will implement between 2020 and 2023.

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These measures to achieve circular objectives include, among other things:

Revision of the rules on end-of-life vehicles (ELV Directive 2000/53/EC) with a view to promoting more circular business models by linking design issues to end-of-life treatment, considering rules on mandatory recycled content for certain materials of components, and improving recycling efficiency
Review of EU rules on restrictions of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic
Equipment (RoHS Directive 2011/65/EU)
Extension of producers’ responsibility for product performance throughout its lifecycle
- One major challenge for companies is tracking products throughout their entire lifecycle and also incentivizing all supply chain actors to carry out their allocated tasks and responsibilities
- This can be solved digitally via the Digital Twin approach; that is, a digital replica of a physical asset that provides information on how the asset operates throughout its life cycle. Other solutions explicitly mentioned in the Circular Economy Action Plan include digital product passports.
Increased recycled content in products, e.g. via mandatory requirements
- Here, companies face the challenge of measuring and tracking recyclable or recycled content over the entire lifecycle
- A digital traceability system that lets manufacturers, recyclers, and smelters etc. track recycled and secondary materials along their lifecycle can remedy this situation.