Jonatan Tullberg looks ahead to a year when digitalisation, traceability and interoperability will be key elements to businesses.Several sustainability regulations will come into force between 2025 and 2030. This will present a challenging landscape for many companies, requiring digitalisation and significantly more data. However, if companies can effectively utilise all the new data, it will create opportunities to enhance efficiency, traceability and better products. Jonatan Tullberg, CEO of GS1 Sweden looks ahead to a year where digitalisation, traceability and interoperability are the main focus.
In recent years, GS1 has received many questions about how standardization can equip companies for the multitude of EU legislation in the field of sustainability. The rules, which are part of the EU Green Deal, place new requirements on companies to share digital data in a transparent and structured way throughout the supply chain.
Regulations, such as EUDR, PPWR, CPR and ESPR (Digital Product Passports), will begin to apply from 2025 until 2030. Now is a good time for Swedish companies to start preparing their business for the upcoming changes.
Many companies see the rules as complicated and challenging. At GS1, we are therefore working proactively to develop standards and services as a tool to meet future requirements, both at EU, national and global levels. A global language of business, our focus for 50 years, is now more relevant than ever as companies need to communicate increased amounts of data from their value chains. And in a structured way that both machines and humans can interpret and understand.
But what preparatory steps does a business need to take, you may ask? What preconditions need to be in place? And how can GS1 standards be key to meeting the requirements?
The new rules require digitalisation, and managing information exchange manually will no longer be an option. The first step is therefore to identify and then digitalise the information in your value chain – from collection and management to sharing technical and sustainability data. Investing in digitalisation usually also leads to business benefits such as more efficient processes, cost savings and greater opportunities for growth. The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) also confirms this in a report and opinion piece in Dagens Industri from 2024.
Interoperability is a key element driven by regulations. Even though the word is complicated, I hope in the future there will be more discussions about the meaning, which is about systems, organizations and business processes working together and having the ability to communicate seamlessly based on common rules. This means that we are moving towards a standardized, automated ecosystem where actors in the value chain use a digital business language to exchange information. At the same time, we are leaving paper and manual solutions, such as Excel and PDF, behind.
Traceability is becoming an important key to sustainability and a prerequisite for reporting. Companies now need to collect and share traceability data across large parts of the value chain – from raw materials to recycling. The raw data should be able to provide real-time information and history on different objects, locations and parties in a value chain. The data generated is then used for sustainability reporting, both at company level (e.g. under CSRD) and at product level (as in ESPR).
A good example of how GS1 standards can be a tool and solve several challenges at the same time can be found by taking a closer look at the technical requirements of the ESPR on digital product passports. It requires each product to have a unique identity using open standards in an interoperable format that different systems can read. The information must also be machine-readable, structured and searchable. A QR code on the product should then link the user to the product’s identity and traceability information. In the example, companies can use global standards to enable identification, labeling, data sharing and traceability throughout the value chain. The same traceability information is required for other EU regulations and the already generated data is then ready to be used, but for different reporting purposes.
In conclusion, my call to industries is to start preparing in 2025. Digitalisation of data, interoperability and traceability will be new enablers for success. At the same time, they can also provide holistic benefits such as more efficient processes, safer products and better competitiveness.
GS1 Sweden is currently contributing to the preparatory work mainly through standard and service development, but we also run industry and user groups, participate in committees, disseminate knowledge, offer tools and methodological support and test standardized solutions linked to regulations in live pilot projects. My colleagues and I look forward to continuing to support you on your digitalisation journey towards a more sustainable value chain.
Shortcuts to the next step
GS1 Sweden is actively working to help companies meet sustainability regulations in a standardized way. On our website you will find guides, reports, working groups and webinars.