Global CircularID Standard & Digital System

Today, we do not identify products and materials across the lifecycle, making it almost impossible to manage resources and transition to a circular economy. The Global Connect Fashion Initiative is introducing CircularID™—the global standard and digital system for identification and management of products in the circular economy across fashion, apparel and retail.  With CircularID, every product is complete with a digital profile, enabling the product to digitally share information essential for managing that product across circular business functions  (e.g. resale, rental, reuse, reverse logistics) and material regeneration processes (e.g. recycling, disassembly). CircularID makes it possible to operationalize circular economy, and also creates new economic incentives for brands and retailers to power circular business models—decoupling resource consumption from economic growth. Powering lifecycle transparency, CircularID invites new policy and accountability. If every product had a CircularID, we could create the fundamental systems change essential for our regenerative future.

Today, over one hundred billion articles of clothing are produced annually.  Without identification of these products and their materials, it is impossible to manage them through circular business models and material regeneration processes. Circular economy business models (e.g. resale, rental, reuse, sharing, reverse logistics) require products to be systematically identified to function effectively and at scale globally. Material regeneration processes (e.g. recycling, disassembly) require detailed understanding of a product’s material components to separate, process and regenerate. Today, circular business models and material regeneration process are inefficient and often ineffective because circular economy stakeholders (e.g. reseller, recycler) must try to retroactively identify products and materials. For resellers, it takes lengthy periods of time to identity products for resale. For rental and sharing models, management of complex reverse logistics prevents efficiency and scale. For recyclers, separation and identification of materials is manual and often impossible. The retroactive identification and management of products and materials not only prevents the intelligence essential for operationalizing circular economy – it also fails to solve for the lack of incentives and transparency across business, consumer behavior and policy, essential for fundamental systems change. 

CircularID serves stakeholders across the fashion, apparel and retail value chain—from source, production, use and continuous cycling. It makes it possible for stakeholders across the product lifecycle to communicate and share information. Collaboration is essential to design the shared protocol for communication between these stakeholders. The Global Connect Fashion Initiative solves for this by bringing together leadership from fashion, apparel and retail, and partners from circular businesses, technology, policy, and academia — together codifying and introducing the global standard for CircularID.  Members and Partners of the Connect Fashion Initiative include some of the largest brands, retailers, circular economy stakeholders and technology providers, including: H&M Group, Target, PVH Corp., C&A Foundation, Closed Loop Partners, Microsoft, GS1, IDEO,  Waste Management,  The Renewal Workshop, I:CO, NYC Fair Fashion Center, RISE IVF and the NYC Economic Development Corp, and more to announce soon. The initiative bridges the communication gap between producers (e.g. brands)  and processors (e.g. recyclers, resellers), facilitating essential collaboration to design the digital system that connects them. The CircularID protocol will be open to industry, serving not only Members and Partners, but also the fashion, apparel and retail industry at large. 

Our solution is to develop a shared system for identifying and managing products in the circular economy. In collaboration with industry leadership in Global Connect Fashion Initiative, we are codifying the CircularID™ standard, and creating the shared digital foundation for circular economy.  

Product identification already has a strong business case in today's linear economy. Industry has long been utilizing item-level identification (e.g. barcode, RFID)  to manage products in the supply chain. Today, identifiers are removed at point of sale as there is little concern to what happens post-sale. By taking the simple step to embed these identifiers into products, and introduce a shared protocol for identification, we will be able to identify products and materials in the circular economy. 

As a circular economy is an open system, where products from different producers are managed collectively, a shared protocol is essential. Without a shared protocol, stakeholders will not be able to share, generate or access the product data  that is essential for a successful orchestration of a circular economy.

When a product has a CircularID, it is complete with a Digital Identity that enables the product to share and communicate information essential for managing it in the circular economy.  A Digital Identity is a ‘digital twin’ of a physical product. Digital identity makes it possible to connect a product to the Internet of Things (IoT), and exchange information about the product through the internet. A Digital Identity requires that a digital identifier (e.g. RFID, QR Code, NFC, etc) be attached to the physical product. Through interactions (e.g. scan, tap or photograph etc) with the digital identifier, we can access the product’s digital profile.

The CircularID standard is structured in two parts. The first part is the Product ID, which covers information essential for managing the product in circular business models, including data fields such as: brand, product name, size, color, etc. The second part is the Material ID, which covers information essential for the regeneration of the material, including data fields such as: material type, dye process, thread type, etc. Together, the Product ID and the Material ID provide all the information essential to keeping the product and material in circulation.

We plan to expand CircularID across industries—to furniture, home goods, the built environment, circular cities, and more— powering new circular business models, and bringing transparency and accountability to resource production and consumption globally.

Our innovation creates a new dimension of performance by enabling communication across the entire product lifecycle. In the linear economy, participants operate in isolation – each stakeholder performs a specific job function and holds information/data related to their business function. This is a siloed approach to collaboration, communication and data-management. Our transition to a circular economy requires moving toward a system that allows communication between all these isolated functions. By creating the digital foundation for circular economy, our innovation enables the interconnectivity across the entire value chain that will power our transition to a connected and circular ecosystem.  

Let’s look at an example of how isolated intelligence prevents connected and circular systems. Today, a brand makes a product and later a waste-processor is responsible to manage this product – however, neither player communicates with the other to share information about the product or process. If the product had a CircularID, these currently isolated stakeholders would be able to communicate. The brand could share information about the product and it’s material with the processor, and the processor could access this information and share feedback to the brand.  

Identification technology already has a strong business case in the linear economy. We are applying existing Internet of Things technologies to circular economy, and introducing a new process and standard protocol to allow for product and material identification in an open circular system.  

Our solution leverages Internet of Things technology to enable the creation of a Digital Identity. Digital Identities generate large amounts of data about products across the lifecycle –  inviting application of AI and machine learning. Please see here further insights on the technology we use.

• IoT + Blockchain Technology: Our Internet of Things platform enables the creation and management of Digital Identities, which can be stored on the blockchain for security and anonymity.  
• Hardware Technology: To identify products and connect them to the IoT requires some enabling hardware. We can work with any/ all hardware identifiers. To date, we have utilized a state-of-the-art washable RFID thread.
• Standard Protocol:  We are codifying the standard data protocol for Digital Identity in the circular economy across fashion apparel and retail. This is a protocol for product data master architecture and management.
• AI and Machine Learning: We will be working with very large amount of product data. This will create new opportunities to apply AI and Machine Learning to management of products in the circular economy. Successful applications of AI require data be shared in an open and secure manner, and that AI is developed and deployed in ways that are inclusive and fair to all. The collaboration through the Connect Fashion Initiative, will enable the collaboration between relevant stakeholders essential to creating systematic applications of AI.
• Biomimicry: Out IoT strategy is designed around the principles of biomimicry – to emulate the interconnectivity of natural systems. 

We have articulated our Theory of Change in alignment with the proposed methodology: Organization > Activity> Output> Outcome.

Organization: We have brought together industry leadership to collaborate to shape the shared digital foundation for circular economy through the Connect Fashion Initiative.  As circular economy is an open system where all products are in aggregate, a global system for identification is essential. The initiative will enable industry to collaborate and collectively harness the power of the Internet of Things for circular economy.

Activity: The activities of the initiative include facilitating multi-stakeholder collaboration to design a global protocol meeting the need of all stakeholders.  Once the protocol is established, the initiative will provide a pre-competitive environment to design multi-stakeholder pilots to implement the solution. Activities also include education and awareness across industry to drive adoption.

Output: The Initiative will introduce CircularID – the global standard and digital system for identification and management of products in circular economy. The multi-stakeholder collaboration to codify and pilot the standard will enable us to produce guidelines for how to implement digital identity and share case studies on pilots. 

Outcome:  By introducing the CircularID standard protocol to industry, we provide industry with the resources and guidelines to be able to identify and manage products in a global and open system. As brands and retailers start to introduce CircularID to products, it will be possible to manage these products and bring transparency, new business incentives and accountability to circular economy. 

As the CircularID standard is an open and public protocol, it will serve the entire fashion, apparel and retail industry. The standard is an open resource for industry - enabling interconnectivity and communication across the entire ecosystem.  

Currently,  we are partnered with three of the largest global fashion-holding companies, each owning multiple multi-national brands, to codify this standard procotol. We are also partnered with three of the largest reverse logistics, reseller and recyclers to inform the codification of the protocol. 

Next year, we anticipate 10+ fashion and retailers, and 5 + circular economy service providers,  will join us in the Connect Fashion Initiative - collaborating to implement the protocol.  

In five years, we plan to serve hundreds of brands, retailers and circular economy stakeholders through the implementation of the CircularID protocol. We also plan to expand across industry.   

Over the next five years, our goals are to:

• Scale implementation of CircularID and create a method for identifying products across other applicable industries (e.g furniture, home goods, transportation, built environment, etc). The implementation of CircularID across fashion, apparel and retail will serve as a prototype and roadmap for all industries. 
• Prove triple-bottom line value of identification for circular economy and have industry adopting and implementing at scale.  
• Partner with brands to power new circular business models that enable producers to generate revenue from products across the lifecycle – proving that is it possible to generate revenue without making new products. 
• Collaborate with policy to enable measurement of a product’s circularity.  The measurement we are able to make possible with CircularID will create new never-before-possible transparency, making accountability in circular economy possible. Without measurement, managing the circular economy is impossible.

Our biggest challenges include technical, legal, financial and market barriers.     

• Technical Challenges: The Internet of Things is one of the most powerful enabling technologies for circular economy according to World Economic Forum. However, while IoT introduces a proposed $11 trillion dollars of economic value, in order to capture 40-60% of this economic value requires interoperability between IoT systems (McKinsey, 2017). Interoperability is the ability for IoT systems to communicate together. For circular economy applications, solving for interoperability is essential, as IoT must enable communication between stakeholders in the value chain.  
• Market Barriers: We will face complexity as we move to scale the standard and solution globally. Different cultures and geographies will have different approaches to technology, access to information, policy, data ownership, circular economy and more. While the CircularID standard needs to be global, it must also answer local and cultural specific needs.
• Legal Challenges: To facilitate pre-competitive collaboration between producers and circular economy solution providers, requires careful legal management across Members. With implementation around the EON platform, we face questions around data-ownership and consumer privacy. How can we incentivize producers to share key data essential for circular economy? How can we protect consumer privacy while also enabling transparency essential for circular economy?
• Financial Challenges: As our solution is about industry transformation and systems change. Implementation and adoption is a lengthy process. We need investors who are interested in long-term value. 

We plan to overcome these challenges as follows: 

• Technical Challenges: To solve for technical challenges related to interoperability, we are collaborating with stakeholders across the entire product lifecycle to design a shared protocol for CircularID and establish a product data master architecture and governance.
• Market Barriers: To solve for market barriers, we are inviting members and partners who represent different geographies and cultures to participate in the Connect Fashion Initiative. In the future, we will have local collaboration specific to each region.
• Legal Challenges: To solve for legal challenges, we are working closely with our legal team to establish governance and guidelines on what topics are shared and discussed collaboratively through the initiative. We are also introducing a Charter that all members of the initiative will need to execute.  
• Financial Challenges : To solve for financial challenges, we are seeking out and engaging with impact investors who share our investment horizon. 

Our company is EON Group, a for-profit US company. EON is a Digital Identity company in fashion, apparel and retail. Our mission is to harness the power of connectivity to power our circular and regenerative future.  Recognizing our connected and circular future would not be possible without industry wide collaboration, Natasha Franck, Founder of EON, founded the Connect Fashion Global Initiative in 2018. Connect Fashion is owned by EON.  Connect Fashion brings together industry leadership, facilitating essential collaboration to codify the shared digital foundation for circular economy. Connect Fashion is codifying the CircularID Standard, which will be an open-protocol for industry.  EON introduces a Digital Identity IoT platform that will enable the creation of Digital Identities in alignment with the CircularID protocol.  

The full-time staff is three people, and the part-time staff is four people. We have seven people in total. With additional funding,  two of the part-time staff will join full-time. Our Members and Partners contribute personnel, resources and time to the codification of the solution.  We have plans to scale our team globally in the near future. 

EON was founded in 2016. In 2018, we started the Connect Fashion Initiative. The V.1 of CircularID standard, and the EON Digital Identity platform, will launch to industry in October 2019. Our leadership team brings together leadership from smart cities, supply chain, retail, circular design, IoT, data architecture and AI – together creating a systems-based approach to designing the digital foundation for circular economy.

• Natasha Franck (EON, CEO) has background in smart cities and sustainable urbanism. Previously, Natasha was President of Global Business Development for Delos, a sustainable real estate technology company, where she lead the development and implementation of the WELL Building Standard globally.
• Annie Gullingsgrund (EON, Partner) is a globally recognized thought leader for circular fashion. She was the Director of Textiles and Apparel at Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute, where she championed the development of the Fashion Positive program.
• Hannah Kamaie (EON, Consultant) was the Global E-Commerce Director at Inditex (Zara), where she worked at the intersection of retail and emerging technologies, on front-end and back-end – across supply chain, operations, logistics, merchandising, retail experience, data-analytics and e-commerce.  
• Luke Connolly and Yuan Ma (EON, Technical Leads + Engineers) are leading engineers behind the product development, pilots, and product-data master architecture. 

Through Connect Fashion, Members and Partners are able to collaborate to inform the shared digital foundation for circular economy.

• Brand & Retail Members include H&M Group, Target, PVH Corp. (We anticipate 10+ brands/ retailers by 2020). These members participate in the CircularID standard peer-review process as voting members.
• Circular Stakeholder Members include Waste Management,  The Renewal Workshop, I:CO and ForDays. These members represent circular economy business functions (e.g. rental, reverse logistics, recycling, etc) and participate in the CircularID standard peer-review process as voting members.  
• Technology Members include GS1 and Microsoft. GS1 is the global standards body for identification of products in today’s linear economy – and we are collaborating with them to extend their tools into circular economy. Both Microsoft and GS1 act as technology advisors with the initiative.  
• NGO & Academic Members include C&A Foundation, Closed Loop Partners, NYC Fair Fashion Center, RISE IVF and the NYC Economic Development Corp. These stakeholders, representing the broader circular system and act as advisors to inform the standard development.  
• Strategy Members include IDEO, who is informing the customer value and experience.

EON introduces a Digital Identity software solution for creating, managing and storing product data. We license this software platform to brands and retailers, and generate revenue from the platform. Today, there are no cloud based enterprise systems for managing product master data, and enabling IoT connectivity to the physical product. The EON platform becomes a centralized location for brands and retailers to manage, access, share and generate product data.  Today, brands use an ERP (Enterprise Resources Planning) system to manage product data in production. Our Digital Identity platform solution could be thought of as an extension of the ERP – managing that product data across the lifecycle. Platform fees are established based on a combination of identities generated, data-storage, users, and interactions.

The Connect Fashion Initiative is a research and development initiative funded in part by EON, in part by philanthropic partners, and in part by membership dues from brand, retail partners, and circular economy stakeholders. 

Our path to financial sustainability includes the following sources:

• Client Revenue: We will generate revenue from licensing the EON software as a service platform
• Membership Fees : We will charge members fees for participation in Connect Fashion to support ongoing research and development.
• Philanthropic Support: In the short-term, we will look for further grant financing to support the codification of CircularID protocol
• Investment: We plan to take investment to support to development of the software platform, so that we can manage and support larger clients. 

We believe that Solve can help us access a network of resources, partnership and talent essential for designing the global digital foundation for the circular future. We are early stage and we need partnership to support the scale, adoption and validation of our solution.

We are interested in Solve because we are looking for platforms to share our work to gain global visibility. As our solution is about creating a shared global protocol, it is essential that our work is highly visible to drive awareness, partnership and adoption.

We are interested in Solve because we want to find technical talent to support with the global expansion and implementation of this solution.

We are interested in Solve because we want to meet mentors and leaders who can provide insight, advice, relationships and introductions that support our mission.  

We are interested in Solve because we believe the industry needs education on the important of identifying products in circular economy, and we believe Solve’s recognition of our work will bring us visibility that enables us to drive industry education and awareness of the problem and solution.   

N/A

We would like to partner with organizations that catalyze triple-bottom line value across industries, such as the World Economic Forum. We believe partnership with these organizations is valuable because we offer an important solution for their members. 

We would also like to partner with some of the circular economy service providers and policy organizations across the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom and Europe. Examples of groups we would like to partner with are the European Commission, the European Environmental Bureau, and NYC Department of Sanitation.

We also interested in support from the Solve community to identify which are the best organizations to partner with globally in regions that we are less familiar. For example, support to identify best partners to introduce CircularID to India or China.  

By creating Digital Identities for products, we will be working with and managing large amount of product data . We believe this data will create new opportunities to apply AI and Machine Learning to inform the management of products in the circular economy. With Digital Identity, it will be possible to use AI to magnify the competitive strength of circular economy business models, such as product-as-a-service,  leasing and resale. Digital Identity makes it possible to combine realtime and historical data from products and users. By marring this intelligence with AI, we can help increase product circulation and asset utilization through pricing and demand prediction, predictive maintenance, and smart inventory management. We believe we are only beginning to scratch the surface of how Digital Identity will come together with AI to power circular economy.  The digital identification of products provides one of the most meaningful sources of data for AI.

Successful applications of AI require data be shared in an open and secure manner, and that AI is developed and deployed in ways that are inclusive and fair to all. The collaboration through the Connect Fashion Initiative is designed to enable the collaboration between relevant stakeholders essential to creating systematic applications of AI.

If selected by the AI Innovations Prize, we would use these resources to support the global expansion and implementation of Digital Identity in the supply chain and circular economy. 

Digital Identification and AI will inform the design of circular products components and materials fit for circular economy. By introducing iterative machine-learning assisted design process that allow for rapid prototyping and testing, the combination of Digital Identification and AI unlocks a more intelligent and efficient circular design process. Digital Identity and AI can also magnify the quality and competitive strength of circular economy business models, such as product-as-a-service, leasing and resale. 

If selected by the GM Prize on Circular Economy,  we would use these resources to support the global expansion and implementation of Digital Identity in the supply chain and circular economy. 

The global garment and textile industries employ 60 million to 75 million people worldwide, 80% of which are women. Most of them labor without contracts, fixed schedules or benefit of labor law. We believe that by giving every product a unique digital identity, we can bring essential transparency to the apparel supply chain to ensure equity for all participants. Digital Identification will make it possible to identity where and how products and produced, and even insight into the individual who made the clothes. This transparency is essential to putting new measurement and accountability for ethical working conditions for the millions of women in the fashion, apparel and retail supply chain. 

If selected by the Innovation for Women prize, we would use these resources to support the implementation of digital identity that brings transparency and equity to the work of women in the apparel supply chain. We would work to further design transparency on working conditions in the supply chain into the CircularID Digital Identity standard. 

We will be working with very large amount of product data, inviting new opportunities to apply AI and Machine Learning to management of products in the circular economy. With Digital Identity, it will be possible to use AI to magnify the competitive strength of circular economy business models, such as product-as-a-service and leasing. Digital Identity makes it possible to combine realtime and historical data from products and users. By marring this intelligence with AI, we can help increase product circulation and asset utilization through pricing and demand prediction, predictive maintenance, and smart inventory management. We believe we are only beginning to scratch the surface of how Digital Identity will come together with AI to power circular economy.  The digital identification of products provides one of the most meaningful sources of data for AI.

Successful applications of AI require data be shared in an open and secure manner, and that AI is developed and deployed in ways that are inclusive and fair to all. The collaboration through the Connect Fashion Initiative is designed to enable the collaboration between relevant stakeholders essential to creating systematic applications of AI.

If selected by the Innospark Ventures Prize, we would use these resources to support the global expansion and implementation of CircularID.