Assessing Digital Product Passports in use

This transcription has been AI generated and therefore may have some inaccuracies.

Panel: Transparency in motion: Digital Product Passports in use

In this panel discussion we talk to companies within the textile & apparel supply chain who have used or have a hand in implementing Digital Product Passports or other transparency tools within their manufacturing facilities for a more circular production chain.

(Madelaine Thomas)

It promises to be a good one. It's based on digital product passports and their use within the supply chain. So joining us for this is Yaqub Ahsan, Chief Information Officer at event partner company Interloop Ltd. Professor Henry Li from the University of Manchester here in the UK. Dr Hilde Heim, founder of Fastracks and Andrew Xeni, founder of Fabacus and Nobody's Child.

(Madelaine Thomas)

So first of all, I'm going to ask this great mix of people who have all been involved in DPPs in some way or another, could briefly introduce themselves and describe how you or your organisation currently engaging with DPPs or other transparency technologies and how you intend to support the rollout and implementation of digital product passports long term. So, big question, short answers as we do the introduction and Yaqub, we'll start with you.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

All right, thank you for having me here.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Oh, Yakub, are you on mute? I can't hear you. Oh, you are good now. I can hear you now.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

Yeah. All right. Thank you. So thank you for having me. My name is Jakub Essin. I'm the Chief Information Officer for Interloop Limited.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

Interloop is a multi -category textile manufacturer and our products are hosiery, denim, knitwear apparel and activewear. For the digital product passports, we have been working on the subject for a few years now. And we started back in 2021, where we started with traceability. So if you look at the ESPR, at a very high level, there are four things that DPPs are currently focusing on, which is composition, traceability, the environmental impact of the product, and the disposal information. So we've started with traceability. We've created a digital platform called LoopTrace.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

We've integrated it with our ERP systems, onboarded our supply chain, and that's where we are right now. Now we're working on the environmental impact.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thank you, Yaqoub. And Andrew, welcome to you next.

(Andrew Xeni)

Hi, everyone. Thanks for the invitation. So I'm in a fortuitous position. I straddle retail and technology. So I'm the founder of Nobody's Child and two technology businesses, Faber. and Ceretto.

(Andrew Xeni)

Nobody's Child, of course, is a responsible ladies wear brand. We are proud to have been pioneering digital product passports for nearly three years. We've finally achieved that all of our autumn winter collection this year has a digital product passport. And all of that stems from a problem I seek to solve through Fabricus. a few years ago that led us to build a proprietary platform for dealing with complex data problems that thankfully transpired to lend itself to allowing for scalable implementation of digital product passports. And because I had nobody's child, I wanted us to lead it.

(Andrew Xeni)

And today we are experiencing a lovely halo effect across both businesses, one as a solution and one as a brand.

(Madelaine Thomas)

So, yeah, happy to play my part today and share some of our learnings. Thank you, Andrew. It's great to have you with us.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

And Henry. OK, thank you.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Can you hear me?

(Yaqub Ahsan)

Yes, I can hear you.

(Professor Yi Li)

OK, thank you for the invitation. Thank you. Hi, everybody. My name is Henry Lee. I'm a professor and a chair in the Department of Materials in the University of Manchester. In fact, we started this DPP platform with a Horizon 2020 project, which is to support the whole industry, link all the supply chain from raw materials, fibers, yarn, fabric, to final products together.

(Professor Yi Li)

So we got, in this project, we got 18, 14 partners from 10 countries, which will work together to develop the platform. And the platform was assessed and tested by like six companies from across Europe. And the commission, EU commission was very happy with the results because actually my team was recognized as a top innovator. So on the basis of that, so we developed the platform the DPPs try to link this together for the whole supply chain. And so to do this, so I'm working with academic societies, like textile, bioengineering, and informatics, in which I'm the chairman of the society, to work with more than 18 countries together to develop international standards and DPP to link every global supply chain together.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thank you. Thank you, Henry. It's good to have you with us. And last but not least, Hilde.

(Hilde Heim)

Hi there. Hi, everybody. My name is Hilde Haim. I'm a senior lecturer at the Manchester Fashion Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University. My research focuses on supply chain transparency and the evolving digital product passport landscape. I began this in about 2019 when I was looking into the buzzword then, blockchain, only to end up through this journey into digital product passports and specifically legislation.

(Hilde Heim)

So my current work spans legislative and eco standards mapping, digital solutions provider evaluation, and the development of practical compliance tools that support industry adoption and ensure accessibility for diverse stakeholders. I was also formerly a small business owner and therefore as close to my heart that SMEs can benefit from this as well and do not find too much burden in it.

(Madelaine Thomas)

That's it. Thank you Hilde, it looks like we're very Manchester heavy over here doesn't it? I'll fly the Yorkshire flag. So, Jakub, we'll come to you first. Interloops, a loop trace platform, provides end -to -end visibility across production. How are you capturing and structuring the kind of machine -readable data that DPPs require, and what challenges have you faced in aligning factory data systems with these emerging frameworks?

(Yaqub Ahsan)

Right. So, Mehdi, So the loop trace system is designed to capture data at source. We're covering from tier one to tier four. And last year, we actually, this year, we actually developed a module which also covers tier five, which is the farm. For the part where a digital identity cannot be actually pasted on the product, we give a digital identity in the system. to let's say the cotton crop from where we are going to get a pick and a number of picks then you know they get combined into a heap in the in the form of you know a batch they move into the into the tier four which is the general so it carries a digital identity with it all data captured at source and geotagged right once the cotton has been ginned the lint has been separated from the seed all cotton bales are then given a physical ID also which is a QR tag and from there onwards from from the cotton bales to the yarn from yarn to process yarn to fabric and then the finished product

(Yaqub Ahsan)

Every product has basically a scannable QR code which carries information about that product along the way. So we can do forward traceability and cascade traceability using the platform. When it comes to challenges, as you go away from the manufacturer in the supply chain, the digital literacy gets lower, especially in farmers and, you know, more so in the developed countries. Even, you know, digital coverage in terms of 4G or 5G is not very prevalent. So we have to give them solutions which are workable for them, local language, mobile devices which can, you know, collect data at source and then hook on to the server when they come in the network coverage and stuff like that. The tier 4 and tier 3, a lot of them don't even have ERP systems which we can integrate.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

So there are technical challenges, there are adoption challenges. And that's, you know, I would say the bigger ones that we face.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thank you, Jakub. Andrew, we'll come over to you here to hear more about your experiences. As you said, you kind of straddle the technology and the fashion side of it. So what crossovers do you see between your kind of two worlds in your digital licensing and technology world and the DPP section?

(Andrew Xeni)

And how might learnings from that sector help fashion handle traceability data? They're not actually interlinked that way, but it does bring to surface an interesting challenge that has been overlooked. that the DPP is normally implemented by the manufacturer, but responsibility also lies with the vendor. When you think about licensed consumer products, the licensors who are the IP owners are completely disconnected from the value chain. It's a problem that we solve at Fabricus. That's our core proposition is building authenticated catalogs for licensors so that for the first time they have visibility of all of the products at retail with their IP.

(Andrew Xeni)

And what we're doing is we're integrating the licensors into that DPP creation through verifiable IP credentials. And so, yeah, there is some science there and there is a need for sure, but I'm going to keep it more superficial for the purpose of this exercise. The common denominator for me between the two businesses fundamentally is a cultural alignment on trying to achieve what success looks and feels like to us. And in the absence of that mindset and that culture within those organizations, achieving scalable DPPs becomes hindered or impossible. I'm lucky enough to work with some of the biggest retailers and brands outside of being a retailer myself. And the common challenge is, yes, there is a data challenge, there is a a logistics implementation adoption challenge.

(Andrew Xeni)

But if the culture's right, the mindset's right, nothing else is insurmountable. And so for me, I'm just privileged enough to have two teams that are dedicated to the cause and have demonstrated that it can be done at scale in not only a cost efficient way, but more importantly, in a commercially compelling way that delivers a huge return on investment for implementing DPPs. And DPPs are often perceived as a compliance or regulatory requirement because of those incoming regulations, but the reality is you're activating your products, you're able to speak to your consumer at product level, the first time, you're speaking to consumers that have potentially bought your product through a new channel, so you don't know who they are. So there's huge benefits associated to the implementation of DPP. And of course, the byproduct of implementation is visibility, is control, is accountability.

(Andrew Xeni)

And so yeah, for me, over the last three years, watching Nobody's Child as a team, adopt it embrace it and drive it has been amazing but also as a product as a service at Fabricus working with not only my own teams but some of the other big retailers to navigate some of those challenges the common denominator is where the culture is right then everything's possible and I think that's a key message for me to deliver to the audience is something I've been quite passionate about the last year or two because immediately everyone I speak to You know, of course, it's amazing that we get praised and recognized for for doing it. But actually, it comes quite natural to my team because they enjoy it so much and they love what it brings and what it does. So it makes my life a lot easier.

(Madelaine Thomas)

We spoke a lot over the last week about kind of that cost element to Circularity and DPPs are included in that as well. Is that something you had to take into account at Nobody's Child when you were doing your new autumn winter collection?

(Andrew Xeni)

Of course. I mean, it's every touchpoint from designing with Circularity in mind to the fabrics that we can use and source and looking for the right accreditations and environmental impact, the restrictions that come with that. There's lots of product categories that we can't potentialise because there are fabrics we can't use because we don't want to. So, you know, there is a cost of doing things correctly, but I would still say the positives outweigh those costs significantly. We're associated with being a responsible brand because it's been part of our DNA from the beginning. We set out to be an ethical brand and slowly we evolved and practiced the best we could to achieve a responsible brand.

(Andrew Xeni)

way of working. We don't claim to be sustainable because that's hypocritical as a fashion brand, but we're certainly one of the most responsible and we're proud of that. But when we implemented DPPs, I mean to give you a very simple equation to demonstrate a return on investment, we've had over 25 ,000 customers today scan and register through the DPPs. Now if my customer acquisition cost is roughly £20 per person, then immediately that's a half a million pound return on investment. And that half a million pound is significantly more than the cost of implementation. Now, the challenge, of course, is not necessarily a monetary one.

(Andrew Xeni)

It goes back to the mindset and the culture, getting my suppliers to understand what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, getting their suppliers to come on board and support it. That's been the biggest challenge, not the financial burden. The financial business case, I can give you a business case that demonstrates a six to seven hundred percent return on investment very quickly. But again, if the business is not culturally aligned on doing this and brave enough, then it all falls over anyway. So it's certainly not a commercial barrier. But those that are embracing it, and a lot are, and I can't unfortunately share all the details, some of them are sensitive, but a lot of them are.

(Andrew Xeni)

And those that are doing it with conviction and confidence are already yielding a return. So I'm encouraging it through a commercial lens, but passionately through the fact that it drives such good.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Brilliant, that's a really good point to make Andrew, thank you. Hilde, if we come to you, it can obviously be more difficult for small and medium -sized businesses. Based on your research what are the specific barriers for smaller brands that they're facing and how can we help them to meet complex DPP obligations?

(Hilde Heim)

Well there's probably quite a few actually. SMEs face several intertwined barriers. There's limited technical capacity, fragmented supply chain data, and uncertainty around fast evolving regulatory expectations. Many lack the resources to interpret legislation, for example. I think we almost need to decouple the conversation between the DPP itself and the legislation. It's almost become a chicken and an egg thing now.

(Hilde Heim)

Interesting that Fabricus has started that. in a sense, way before the actual legislation came out and has done well with that area. So that's really great. But the thing is that we're here now looking at a lot of legislation coming in that's going to require DPPs. And then we've got small scale operators that are really concerned about it. They're confused about it.

(Hilde Heim)

They're confused about the legislation. on the one hand, as well as the DPP providers, what can they give me? What do I actually need? They're not sure about a lot of things. And many lack resources to interpret, first of all, the legislation, evaluate the data carrier options or integrate the traceability systems into existing workflows. That's why we actually came up with, in our research group, we came up with FASTRAX Compliance Navigator.

(Hilde Heim)

Well, first of all, before that, we created a legislation database that we have listed around 100 new pieces of legislation that are coming in. Some of them are already enforced. They're not specifically fashion, but they will relate to fashion to some degree or another. So we've got that list to start with, which is an easy quick glance at, is it in my country? Is it not in my country?

(Hilde Heim)

Or where I sell to, the market I sell into. And then we also created the compliance navigators so that they could get through this and with through, it's just a conditional logic question. whiz, if you like, that asks you certain questions if you're a small scale enterprise, and to see to hopefully arrive at well, this, this and this legislation actually applies to you. And you basically don't need to worry about the rest. So at least that way, what we're trying to do is, in a sense, simplify the landscape for SMEs to reduce the anxiety. And then hopefully, we'll be able to build on that as well, which we're working on as well.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thanks Hilary and Henry we'll come to you as well on that because I know you mentioned you're focusing a lot on alignment and that global alignment. Do you feel that we are moving towards an interoperable DPP system or are the fragmentations in different regions kind of too big to get over?

(Professor Yi Li)

Yes, actually the main drive is EPSR legislation, which reinforced actually by the EU Commission to ask the European Standard Organization to develop the standard. Actually, I'm representing EPSR in the working group, GCT24. Currently, we are very busy to develop the standard in two aspects. The first aspect is ICT. requirements which including all the legal requirements and also ICT structure what's required in the database data carrier and what's the minimum requirements for DPP to be registered okay how to set up the the the system in the new condition to get all the DPP requests recognized and what's the minimum requirements for the DPP data.

(Professor Yi Li)

So that's one aspect which I'm working on in the group. On the other side is that I saw by International Standard Organization, TC154, and also IEC work together to have a joint meeting to establish directives to say which standard in the past should it be referenced to utilize in the DPPs, which has a huge impact as well. However, the key driver is the same standards. But all this is great, currently is focused on the legal and the ICT ecosystem of the DPPs. In terms of what's the technical contents, the data required for the DPPs, we are working on to develop a international standard, which by because the whole Europe like more than like 40 percent are import globally, and the UK exports 70 % of textile fashion products to the EU.

(Professor Yi Li)

Therefore, it's very important to have a global understanding of what the DPP requirement is and what data is required. So in terms of the EPSR requirements, there are 16 categories of data which has been listed required. So we can classify into four major categories. The first one is technical performance, including the endurance, including the repairability, so on and so forth. The second aspect is the environmental impact. like EU developed the PEF, product environment footprint, which has integrated into this aspect.

(Professor Yi Li)

The other aspect is the circularity. So which standard has been developed to link with the production process, the circularity, the material circularity, the circularity of the final product. So all this is the third aspect. The final aspect is ESG, which with international standard, we're going to include these three areas. The first one is environmental. Second one is social.

(Professor Yi Li)

The third one is governance. All these more than 36 key PIs has been identified. So how do you integrate all this together? It's a mess. work, and also there is so many organizations, associations developed by themselves, but all this needs to be recognized, integrated by the international standard and the same standard.

(Professor Yi Li)

This is why, so we are working on, like as I mentioned, to develop like international group standards by organizing like the companies, So this is what we do, develop an ecosystem for DPP, which involves manufacturers, also involves the brands, distributors, involves consumers, and involves what's important, the testing organizations, auditing organizations, as well as the standard developer organizations, also the certification party. all this together to form an international ecosystem. So when developing this, like TBS, IGS standards, we have four, or like a key, and the DPP data requirements. The first one is technical performance. Second one is ECG. The third one is security.

(Professor Yi Li)

The first one, environment footprints. By architecting We got experts from 18 countries, from Europe, from Asia, from Japan, from US, from Australia, together to develop the standard. From this standard, what we can do is we got manufacturers involved, and also exporters, importers involved, also brands. involved, as well as the testing organization, like SJS, Intertech, Unilever. ZDHC, standard development organization, they all very actively participated in the ecosystem. Because in the future, now Every player, stakeholders, will try to find a position within the ecosystem to enable the circularity sustainability.

(Professor Yi Li)

So that's the progress. Currently, we are in the process of to already develop the committee draft. We are in the process to revise the draft and get experts to reach the final agreement, then we will publish. Therefore, actually, we invite all the companies, including the speakers today, also the companies, whether it's SMEs or big companies, you are most welcome to join, to participate in the development of the international standard, so you know what's happening. and get much better prepared. And from this, actually, we'll start to organize with WTIN, Texas Institute, and other societies.

(Professor Yi Li)

We'll start to talk about to provide regular training courses for MNCs companies to teach them what's required, how to get prepared. So that's the current status.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thanks, Henry. I think it's important, as you said, to include that whole supply chain. Yacoub, we'll come to you now as a manufacturer. How are you preparing your internal systems and supply partners to handle the structured data that DPPs demand and going forward? Andrew's point about, are suppliers ready to share their information in a transparent way?

(Yaqub Ahsan)

Right. So as I mentioned, we've covered some ground. We've developed a platform that trace. We've integrated our ERP systems. So on the traceability side, we are OK. Now we are working on the environmental impact part, which Professor He was also just talking about.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

And we want to basically capture primary data. We don't want to work with secondary data because primary data is the one that gives you real view into how much water, how much steam, your carbon impact on a particular order, what kind of chemicals you're using. And it's easier for a tier one manufacturer like us to set up their own facility because you have automated meter reading and the data is coming online and we can allocate that to your product. So tier one part is easier, but as you again go down the tier, tier two, tier three, tier four, it becomes more and more difficult. A lot of them are not geared at present and also not convinced on why they should make these investments. So that's, that's one part.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

The second part is basically, you know, to get the suppliers to buy into the data as to why they should come on board and because there's a cost to it, right? And, you know, so at the end of the day, who covers that cost? So that's a question. The third one of course Professor Yi was again talking about the standards. There is no single platform that can cover the entire supply chain.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

Textile supply chains are complex. And unless we develop these standards, it will be very, very difficult to have end -to -end visibility and the data points that we need in a digital product passport to be reflected correctly.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thanks Yakubon. What strategies or technologies do you feel are promising to ensure that integrity in the data that you're providing? As you said, you only want primary data. How do we ensure that that data is authentic, it's verified, it's got integrity?

(Yaqub Ahsan)

So if the data is flowing directly from machines, again, at source, that data is more reliable. We also talked about blockchain. So blockchain makes sure that your transactions that are being carried out are irrefutable, irreversible, and dependable. However, there is a cost to blockchain. And then again, who pays that cost? So there are thoughts that every time material changes hands in the supply chain, That's where a transaction is recorded on the blockchain network and that lends credibility to your data.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

There are also thoughts about using a chemical identifier or a DNA identifier in the material that goes along with the digital identity of the product. Again, it carries a cost and it's not very easy to do testing in the field. if you're trying to, you know, map the DNA or chemical to digital.

(Madelaine Thomas)

And Andrew, just coming to you on that point, what have you guys done to ensure, you know, your credible data?

(Andrew Xeni)

Well, I mean, look, the relationships in your supply chain are always built on trust and that alone isn't enough. But just to sort of decipher some of the jargon that we all get familiar with. And I, you know, where I'm guilty of that all the time, you know, there is authentication, there's verification, there's all of these different words. But fundamentally, Fabricus as a solution partner does all the heavy lifting from a data aggregation, structuring, normalization, it's about getting everything that you've got in one place and in a way that can be published to a DPP. Now, we're at the mercy of the source of that data and the integrity of that data is what we're told. So we always have a dependency on the audit function.

(Andrew Xeni)

We don't replace an audit function. You need to have physical auditors that are going in and checking that what you're being told is correct or not, you know, trying to mitigate risk that way. We do always talk about origin versus source because the source of information It is great short term, but ultimately you want to get to origin again to mitigate risk of human error, manipulation, you know, all of these things where possible. And so this is a journey, right? I don't think anybody will achieve that level of visibility, transparency in an automated way overnight. Unless it's very focused, very narrow, you know, we have products with specific partners that are vertical operations and therefore you can trust those a lot more than the ones that are procured in a different way.

(Andrew Xeni)

But everybody's still exposed to being given the wrong information. Our job is to mitigate as much risk as possible. And there's a lot of good technologies out there that we're seeing develop around how to trace things back. and how to make sure that what we're being told is correct from a physical standpoint and a digital standpoint. But the reality is we will never mitigate risk entirely. And with all the best will in the world, with the best technologies, and of course, we're tech enthusiasts, the tool on its own also will not fix that problem.

(Andrew Xeni)

It's a blend of a lot of things that need to come together to get the best state. And that becomes your foundation. And then you build on that.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thank you, Andrew. That was a good answer. And Hilde, I saw you nodding along there. Do you have anything to add to that? Oh, you are mute.

(Hilde Heim)

I totally agree with all of those points. Yes, there is a lot of jargon that goes on. And I suppose audits is the way of doing it. At first, I was quite sceptical about that sort of thing. But, you know, spraying things with tracing chemicals and etc, or powders or whatever it is, is also very expensive. And potentially difficult.

(Hilde Heim)

So I suppose we are back to certifications is the way to do it at the moment. And hopefully most of those certifications are trustworthy in themselves. Because there's that issue as well. Some of them really aren't. There's corruption around that sort of thing, too. But yeah, it's a journey.

(Hilde Heim)

The thing is, it sounds to me like a lot more people are involved in this conversation, which is really good. They're learning about this, they're gaining awareness. knowledge, information, and so on. As it is, you know, I'm at a university, we're thinking about what we can do with our students, for example, because in that way, they are made aware and educated about all of these things before they even leave before they graduate, they're going to be extremely graduate ready to help firms in this way, of course, nobody's going to know everything, but at least get started. on this knowledge journey, which is what it's turning out to be.

(Hilde Heim)

It's almost like we're, we're building the plane while we're flying it, aren't we?

(Madelaine Thomas)

I like that analogy. Yeah. And we're running out of time. So I'm just going to go to an audience question now. And Yuki, I'll direct this one to you. How difficult is it to incorporate product environmental footprint in DPPs from tier one to tier five?

(Yaqub Ahsan)

Right. Excellent question. And as I was mentioning, in tier one, it would probably be easier because you're at a higher level of maturity, you most likely have, you know, your systems, your utilities are being metered, they're most likely is an AMR or automated meter reading system which is pulling data from those meters and you're allocating that to your production orders. However, there are still unanswered questions which are, you know, it might be easier to allocate your production floor energy consumption, water, steam consumption to your orders that you're running. What about the supporting facilities, right? How do you allocate that impact on to your product.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

So I think there is work that needs to be done. I'm very glad to see and I learned a few things from Professor Li today. I know that, you know, if they're working on it, it would be great to, you know, learn from them. But these are questions which need to be answered. Even at tier one level but you know i'm sure we will find answers but as you move away to you know to tier two and tier three and then the farther you go the more difficult it becomes and and in loop trace what we're looking to do is creating an intermediary layer which basically connects with the energy systems of respective suppliers in the supply chain.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

And then we basically pull that data. So there's an interface that you provide. And we say, guys, just push your data, your product, and your data, which is for your carbon, chemical, and water footprint into this module. And we will pull it in and then allocate it to our product. It's easier said than done.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thank you, Yacoub. Andrew, do you want to share your experiences on that as well?

(Andrew Xeni)

Yeah, I mean, we work with a partner. We've tried a couple of different tools over the years. We're currently working with Fairly Made. who are doing a lot of the calculating for us. We're helping them do all the heavy lifting with the various partners, getting them through the funnel, getting them educated to make sure we're capturing the right data at the right time to have the most informed view that we can. And of course, again, we go back to the point we touched on earlier, you're at the mercy of what you're being told, but Fairleigh made our our traceability partner at Nobody's Child.

(Andrew Xeni)

They feed us the data for the DPPs that we've scaled across the NC collection. And we like to think that we've got a pretty good grip. We do push for tier five where possible. I mean, that's been a mammoth undertaking and not everybody's ready for that. And we've managed to achieve that in a lot of most cases, actually. But I don't think on all of them quite.

(Andrew Xeni)

yet. But, you know, we're polishing the diamond. We know it's there and we're working on it really hard. There's a collaborative effort between our traceability partners, our supplier base and the team at NC that are working closely on capturing as much information to get as close to a calculation. But as Jakub touched on, you know, we're still only dealing with the sort of primary data set, there's so much more that we're not getting visibility and access to, to have a true informed view. But equally, the other side of that coin, of course, is that we're miles ahead of anybody else.

(Andrew Xeni)

So we're very proud of that and we'll keep going and we'll learn. Sometimes we'll get it wrong but we pride ourselves on being transparent not just from a responsibility perspective but also from a brand positioning and tonality perspective. It's something that our customers always appreciate about the brand. When we make mistakes we're quite happy to concede them and then we try and learn from those mistakes and improve and we've come a long way in 10 years and God willing we'll continue to pioneer and lead to drive that change for the next 10.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thanks Andrew and Jakub just coming back to you then actually how are you guys planning to improve on that kind of that access to those you know the tier 5 etc how can we work together with those to increase that visibility?

(Professor Yi Li)

Can I? Yeah, maybe I can. Yeah, I can share our experience by doing this with the European companies, as well as the supply chain. Also, we did last year, we got a masterclass award from the Innovative UK. We gave like a trillion to companies, participants in UK.

(Professor Yi Li)

Afterwards, actually, we visited a few companies. What do we feel like this? In fact, majority of the companies, they already have many data. including technical performance. For instance, if you buy a fiber or buy a yarn, your suppliers will provide the testing reports to them. And we will find that even for casual brands, when they sell their product on the market, for one product, T -shirt, they already have more than 20 tests being done.

(Professor Yi Li)

in order to put onto the market. Now what happened is all of this information are fragmented. They just do the test to make sure if the government wants to monitor it, they can provide evidence. They have no chance to express, like show the consumers. They have done the test already. So what the DPP actually will help them to do is enable them to create a DPP with existing data.

(Professor Yi Li)

And then they can show their customers, consumers, they can say, oh, we have this done already. And then you can utilize to sell the product. And in the DPP implementation, what they do, they can actually, if they select the supplier's products, then they link together. Then the DPPs from the fibers to Yang's DBP. Yang's DBP links directly to Fabric. The Fabric supplier then links to the garment and the brand.

(Professor Yi Li)

So it's automatic. -adopting in the government design process, do you know what I mean? Therefore, when you think about this huge amount of data, when you go to real practice, many of the data are available, but there is no system to link them together. So with the platform we developed called the Fashion Bigger Data Platform by the European Commission, supported by the European Commission, actually technology is already there. And we can easily train the SMEs how to prepare the data, how to input the data, and create the data automatically together. Then you can develop the DVP.

(Professor Yi Li)

You can trace not only composition or region. You can trace the performance. You can trace the safety. You can trace the environment footprint. You can trace the security. You can also trace the ESG because everything is linked digitally together.

(Professor Yi Li)

So the issue is how to inform the supply chain, teach them how to do, how to create an ecosystem where all the stakeholders work together to achieve this. I think that's the key challenge. by doing like a training by doing like a standard so we can formalize we become uniform and everybody has a rule to follow that's become much easier.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thank you Henry for that. Jacob any final word from you on anything to add before we finish because we are run over on time unfortunately.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

All right so I think the last question was on tier five and that's very interesting I'd like to touch upon that because that's where the game starts the day we saw the CT. if you're talking about cotton. And capturing the crop life cycle is a fundamental part to capturing your environmental impact. And so we've actually, like I mentioned, we've done a pilot last year. We've developed an application to cover tier 5. and then again there is so much because if you know you you every time you water the the the crop you need to capture it the source of water how you're you're you know if you're using a tube well which is diesel powered or solar powered it would be different or if it's coming from a canal again it would be different the kind of chemicals you're using the fertilizer you're using so all these things again you know it's It's a long journey, but we need to capture primary data.

(Yaqub Ahsan)

So we've taken a good start. I think with some standards in place and the right tools in place, I think we can get where we want to be.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Thank you, Yacoub, and thank you to the rest of our panellists. I'm sorry, we have run out of time, unfortunately. I feel like there's so much left to cover, but we can only talk for so long anyway. So, yes, thank you so much for joining us today to our panellists and to our event sponsor there, Interloop Ltd. So I thought we've had a really insightful final day and focusing on transparency regulations and digital product passport so again thank you so much to all of those involved today. Some key takeaways from the whole of the week.

(Madelaine Thomas)

where we've touched upon circular materials, design principles, production and transparency, as we've seen today, and textiles, textile and recycling. So some of the key takeaways for me were that you know textiles, textile recycling needs, you know, to be centralised. It's very fragmented and in silos at the moment. So to move forward, we need to work on that centralisation. And there's also the feedstock issue and the scalability to work on there as well when it comes to the recycling side of things.

(Madelaine Thomas)

Innovation in this space seems really promising, whether we're looking at the DPPs or the technology and production or the materials, but we heard on the first day how we need to challenge our internal material teams and suppliers in this space to look at zero waste design and how we think about end of life at the beginning of the process. And then there's also been areas in terms of the textile recycling investment and how funding needs an uplift there. So a big thank you to everyone that's helped make this week so special. Our event partners Interloop and Loopermid from BASF, our Friends of Conference, BenQ Materials Export and the Zero Carbon Academy as well. As I've said throughout all the video content will be available on demand until the end of December and do look out for our special event report on circularity that will be coming out in the coming days. And of course the CPD accreditation will be on its way for those that it's relevant for as well.

(Madelaine Thomas)

We also have our Digital Textile Printing Week taking place 23rd to 27th of March in 2026. So if you're interested in speaking do get in touch if you're in that space. But also with the success of this year's Textile and Power Circularity Week we will be running our second edition next year. So do keep an eye out for more information and information interested in taking part in one way or another then do let us know that's event at wtin .com com for that.

(Madelaine Thomas)

And just lastly if you enjoyed the content and you're not a member of WTIN but are interested in becoming part of our network then do email myself that's mthomas at wtin . com or sales at wtin . com. So that's it from me, thank you so much again for joining us and I will see you at our events next year hopefully, if not before.