Complexity in the delivery of product passports: a system of systems approach to passport lifecycles

Product passports are an emerging data innovation positioned as an information tool to enable sustainable and circular futures, where such futures are delivered through increased and more precise information about resources, products, and processes across the “product lifecycle”. But this is a complex problem space where traditional linear product lifecycles do not reflect the nature and lifespan of articulated passport information types. This is because passports are not records of products per se (as the name would suggest) but descriptions of the lifecycle activities associated with those individual product assets, collating data points throughout engineering, use, re-use, and end-of-life processes. Unfortunately, this distinction is often overlooked, given the limited attention to the life of a product passport after manufacture and the differences between product passports and product passport systems.

This paper presents a generic ‘lifecycle model for a passport’ as an information system of systems comprised of nine constituent lifecycle viewpoints. It builds upon recent research developing the idea of a digital product passport ‘ecosystem’, focusing on the specific application of the battery passport. Each lifecycle viewpoint is framed as a distinct ‘information system of systems’ within a broader information ecosystem. Established concepts within the systems discipline are used to show inherent differences in each viewpoint’s spatial and temporal focus and explain the relationships between each lifecycle viewpoint, thus articulating the parent-child relationships of different datasets and the necessary interoperability between information domains and engineering activities. The resultant model highlights the likely evolution of data requirements over an individual passport’s lifespan, thus contributing to a possible future vision for an interoperable battery passport ecosystem. Furthermore, it is suggested that this lifecycle model can inform the evaluation and discussion of “completeness” for any passport-type system, given its adoption of interdisciplinary systems domain techniques and concepts, helping shape future exploration of the circular economy capability space.