The Hague-based Circularise, a digital product passports provider, announced on Friday that it has joined Audi’s MaterialLoop project to proceed with its circular economy strategy.
Together with 14 other partners from the research, recycling, and supplier sectors headed by Audi, Circularise participated in the pilot project aimed at the reuse of “post-consumer materials,” which are taken from customer vehicles at the end of their lifecycle for the production of new cars.
“It is our goal to recover as many materials as possible at a high level of quality and reuse them in production. This will save valuable primary materials and lower the products’ ecological footprint,” says Audi CEO Markus Duesmann. “Simultaneously, direct access to secondary materials can contribute to increased security of supply. Raw materials would no longer have to be extracted.”
The announcement comes over three months after raising €11M in a Series A round of funding led by Brightlands Venture Partners.
A successful pilot with Audi
The Dutch company brought its expertise in end-to-end supply chain traceability with the use of blockchain technology in the role of the digital product passport expert.
As a part of the project, 100 vehicles, including former development cars, were taken apart in October 2022.
The car bodies were shredded and sorted into material groups such as steel, aluminum, plastic, and glass.
Audi collaborated with project partners from the recycling industry, their supply chain, and academia to pilot a recycling process that aimed to test the reuse of these materials in the production of new cars.
Circularise provided a digital tool to trace the materials’ movement from dismantling to recycling and reuse.
The goal was to achieve the most sustainable end-of-life vehicle recycling practices by avoiding downcycling.
The use of digital product passports will be essential in implementing a circular economy, particularly in the case of electric cars. Circularise intends to assist manufacturers, suppliers, regulators, and consumers by providing valuable data to enhance compliance, and quality control and facilitate the shift towards a circular economy.
The EU’s battery passport regulations will be effective in 2026, and the US Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 further underscores the significance of these passports.
Circularise: End-to-end supply chain traceability
Founded in 2016 by Mesbah Sabur and Jordi de Vos at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Circularise is a digital product passports and mass balance bookkeeping software, MassBalancer, provider.
Circularise’s software system helps suppliers in chemicals, plastics, battery materials, metals, and other industries to trace materials and share their environmental footprint without risking their sensitive data.
It uses blockchain and other emerging technologies to enable companies to share data about their products while retaining privacy over sensitive information.
Circularise aims at sustainability and believes that adopting a circular economy will prevent the waste of raw materials while making a product. It disrupts the long-held linear systems and reduces the harmful effects on the environment.
The company has developed an open-source protocol and decentralised network to integrate transparency into global supply chains and migrate towards a circular economy.
“Sustainability in the automotive world requires a greater understanding of all the facets of material selection and production, design, engineering, supply chain, component manufacturing, finishing, and assembly,” says Mesbah Sabur, Founder of Circularise.
“With digital product passports, we can support traceability and accounting of the materials, processes, and impacts at each step of the value chain. This makes it easier for automotive suppliers and OEMs to accurately measure the LCA and carbon footprint of vehicles as well as make more informed decisions regarding the circular vehicle production,” adds Sabur.
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