Digital services company ensures DPP compliance with QR, NFC or RFID

• Retailer Tesco uses Fabacus solution to meet anticipated DPP product tracking requirements using QR codes
• Fabacus is in talks with companies that want to use RFID or hybrid RFID and NFC solutions for inventory tracking, as well as meet European DPP and ESPR requirements

Since its launch six years ago, global data and technology company Fabacus has offered retailers and brands a platform of services and software, including licensing, and was already in the world of identifying products made and sold by its customers when the European Commission prepared a new dictate on digital product passports (DPPs).

The UK company is now using its product licensing expertise to offer retailers and brands unique identification to meet pending DPP traceability requirements. Retailer Tesco is the latest company to trial the solution – known as Xelacore – to achieve unique item-level identification for clothing, in line with DPP requirements, using QR codes.

In the next few years, the European Commission will require DPPs for several product categories, starting with batteries and textiles, to provide a digital history of each product from production to recycling. There are still many details to be worked out about DPP compliance, including the types of technologies that best identify products and how data can be universally categorized and shared.

Fabacus Creates DPP Compliance Platform

Fabacus plans to launch its solution for tracking and tracing specific products within the circular economy, using RFID and NFC technology as well as QR codes.

In fact, said Andrew Xeni, founder and CEO of Fabacus, the company is currently in talks with several companies that already use RFID technology for inventory tracking to leverage Fabacus’ solution to leverage those tags to meet DPP requirements.

Meanwhile, many brands and retailers are implementing Xelacore with QR codes on labels to access standardised data on product materials and manufacturing history. Tesco’s implementation consists of QR codes that connect shoppers to digital data related to the company’s F&F clothing range.

Improving Sustainability Through Product Life Story

In addition to the GPD, European retailers must comply with the Ecodesign of Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), issued by the European Commission in July, which aims to improve the sustainability and circularity of products on the European Union market.

To meet both ESPR and DPP requirements, companies must provide accessible and detailed information about a product’s life cycle, including its environmental impact based on materials, repair instructions, disposal and recycling methods, and life cycle impacts.

Fabacus’ system integrates and displays this information for Tesco and its customers in a digital form, ensuring it is accessible to anyone who buys, uses or transports goods.

Licensing Background

Fabacus was initially launched as a solution focused on the licensing industry for brands and retailers who license their intellectual property (IP). By creating a system of record for each new product, customers gain visibility and control over products that contain their trademarks, logos or other images. The Fabacus solution protects their IP and revenues, helps prevent counterfeiting and makes it easier for companies to produce goods in high volumes and advertise their products to a wide audience.

Fabacus then creates a structured, trusted registry of all licensed consumer products across all categories, worldwide.

“Last year, we discovered a broader opportunity that no one in the world had considered,” Xeni said: the need for a software platform from which members of the product value chain could access DPP or sustainability data. “So we set out to solve that problem.”

Building a Platform for DPP

Over the past few years, the company has begun to transform itself into a DPP compliance and licensing provider. “The technology we’ve built is actually incredibly well-suited to solving a problem that will become increasingly apparent as DPP legislation comes into effect,” he said.

Starting in 2023, the company began working with large retailers under several different models. Some sell their own brand products across multiple categories, some sell third-party brands, and in other cases, retailers license their intellectual property to other companies, which Xeni says spans “a very complex myriad of consumer products.” All were looking for ways to capture and manage DPP data about their products.

With the new model, Fabacus is expanding its service to help these large organizations create structured product registries for all their products and any related product attributes. These may include environmental, social and governance (ESG) compliance to meet EU requirements or customer expectations.

Structured catalog of digital products

“We sit at the center of all their existing systems and create this structured catalog to really deliver scalable digital product passports,” Xeni explained, so they can generate a real, unique identifier and populate it with DPP-compliant data.

It involves creating a software-based, structured product catalog that keeps all the data in one place, allowing the brand to publish that data to the carrier.

Last year, the company offered its solution to fashion retailer Nobody’s Child in the form of a QR code that customers can scan to view details about a product’s history, including materials, manufacturing processes, logistics and sustainability. It can include, Xeni said, a unique serialized URL for that product with more than 180 data points.

RFID and NFC ready to improve experience

While QR codes are the most immediate and inexpensive solution for accessing DPP data, Fabacus is planning implementations that could use UHF RFID tags. Many garments already have RFID tags attached for inventory management purposes. The tags are read throughout the supply chain and in stores to identify their location and therefore inventory status.

Because RFID tags frequently and automatically update product data, they also provide an opportunity to meet DPP requirements.

However, since consumers will also need access to DPP data and will not carry RFID readers, Xeni expects RFID tags to be used in conjunction with QR codes or NFC tags that can be read with a mobile phone.

Increasing Data Collection Efficiency with RFID

Xeni said RFID technology offers a unique advantage when it comes to measuring the environmental impact of products and refining that understanding based on sales, inventory and distribution information.

If RFID tags are read at distribution centers or as they enter or leave other locations, “you can start using that data to account for the environmental impact of a product and its journey to the store and, essentially, to the point where the consumer owns it,” he said.

While the European Commission can dictate the framework for the new requirements, “we will be the ones to implement them,” Xeni said.

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