The sustainability of long-living, high-value IoT-connected mechatronic products is determined not only by their design but also by the lifecycle ecosystem that supports them. While developing sustainable products is complex, ensuring their profitability is often even more challenging. The central research problem is how manufacturers can design business models that balance environmental impact with economic viability. This project develops a method and toolkit to explore and assess sustainable business models, with a particular focus on the downstream value chain. A critical enabler is product data. The European Union’s Digital Product Passports, to be implemented across product groups by 2030, will require companies to disclose detailed information on product origin, materials, reuse, and recycling options. Although often regarded as a regulatory burden, these passports can also create opportunities to reduce costs and develop new business models.
The research specifically investigates how Digital Product Passport data can be leveraged to design and evaluate sustainable business models and to support the fair and dynamic pricing of servitisation models, such as power-by-the-hour contracts. In this way, the project addresses the challenge of adopting circularity while ensuring long-term profitability.
