Circular Economy in action — Empower and Nordic Comfort Products (NCP) launches digital Product Passport and commits to full transparency
Nordic Comfort Products (NCP), together with Empower, is launching a digital Product Passport to help advance the Circular Economy by increasing the transparency in the supply chain of NCP’s furniture created from recycled plastic.
NCP and Empower have partnered up to advance the circular economy in the furniture industry. NCP sources their material from used ropes and fishing gear from local fish farms on the coast of Norway, to ensure they get a second life as useful products instead of being discarded. Today, the fish farming industry in Norway alone is responsible for approximately 25–30,000 tonnes of plastic waste every year, according to SINTEF [1]. Sourcing used fishing gear and turning it into durable products requires collaboration and technology. In this project, the first actor in the value chain is Nova Sea, which collects used ropes and fishing gear from their local fish farms. Subsequently, the material goes through a recycling process at Oceanize, which transforms the waste into a high-quality resource, and finally ends up at NCP’s production facilities where it is turned into new products. The entire process is tracked and each step is recorded with Empower’s blockchain technology, and, as a result, NCP is able to provide Product Passports for its customers to ensure transparency.
The EU’s Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy [2] from 2018 describes a tremendous potential for recycling. Around 25.8 million tonnes of plastic waste is generated annually in Europe. Around 31% of this goes to landfills and 39% is incinerated. Turning these challenges into opportunities, through a combination of measures such as design, production, collection, and recycling is what the vision of a circular economy is about. The project by NCP and Empower, with Oceanize and Nova Sea contributing to the material tracking, is an example of the initiation of this vision in practice on small scale.
In the scenario of continuing business as usual for plastic production and consumption, the use of fossil-based plastic is on track to almost triple in less than four decades [3]. With barely 9 percent of it being recycled, there is an urgent need to ensure that the materials do not become waste and leak into the environment [4].
To counter this, the Digital Product Passport built by Empower will play a significant role in changing how goods are produced and disposed of. Besides providing transparent and verified records of the product, this has the potential to incentivize producers to prioritize finding ways how to maximize the material’s circulation in the economy.
“NCP has been working with recycling of plastic waste from Kvarøy Fiskeoppdrett and Nova Sea since 2017, and we see a huge possibility in developing and transferring knowledge from this work to other existing products in our own portfolio and to new products from other branches. Our work has just begun.”, says NCP’s CEO Svein-Erik Hjerpbakk.
A Product Passport is a digital passport showing the journey of materials from production or collection and all the way into an end product, providing transparency and traceability about the origin and journey of the product and materials. A Product Passport can tell the stories behind a product and the materials it consists of. With an abundance of all sorts of products globally and the interdependence of international supply chains, it can be challenging to understand where the materials are originating from and under what circumstances they come into a final product. The Empower Product Passport uses blockchain technology and digital signatures to make sure this story is documented, secured, and can be presented with trust and transparency.
All products have a history, and if done in the right way — everyone should be able to see the stories behind the product. Using a digital Product Passport combines the value of materials and verified data and enables the producer to communicate directly with their customers by generating a QR code on their product. This earns trust, provides transparency, and builds incentives for a truly circular economy.
See the full Product Passport on NCP’s sustainable chair S-1500 Ocean Green™ from this link or simply by scanning the QR code below.
“NCP is part of a trend where companies take responsibility for their full value chains and choose to invest in sustainability and transparency on a level that has the potential to change the way we perceive products and materials. Empower loves to work with pioneers like NCP who spearhead the change from a linear to a circular economy and chooses to do so with full transparency and disruptive technologies backing it up”, says Wilhelm Myrer, CEO of Empower and adds that they hope this proof of concept will bring more interest from other brands and producers to trace their materials with Empower’s solution.
About Nordic Comfort Products (NCP)
NCP (Nordic Comfort Products) produces sustainable furniture from plastic waste in new and sustainable ways through innovation and design from their base on the Helgeland coast in northern Norway. At NCP, they invest in the environment and our future by reusing plastic waste from the local fish farming industry to produce furniture and other products locally.
About Empower
EMPOWER, a Norwegian circular platform company uses digitization, cloud data, and blockchain technology to store and facilitate seamless sharing of information about plastic waste and map waste flows to ensure that the plastic ends up where it has the highest value and the lowest cost to society. Empower’s mission is to ensure that all materials have value and can be tracked from production to new resources and back into new sustainable products again, with a vision to close the tap on plastic waste and recreate a world without waste.
Sources
[1] SINTEF, Damman, S., Lund, H. B., Kenzhegaliyeva, A., Øyangen Lindberg, H., & Eli Fyhn Ullern, E. (2022, April). Fra oppdrettsplast til verdi (2022:00349). SINTEF.
[2] European Commission, (2018, January), A European Strategy for Plastic in a Circular Economy.
[3] OECD (2022) “Global plastic waste set to almost triple by 2060”
[4] OECD (2019) “Plastic pollution is growing relentlessly as waste management and recycling fall short”
