Voices of Traceability
Building Sweden’s national readiness together
As digital product passports take shape in Europe, Swerim is taking on a central role in guiding Sweden’s metal industry through the transition. From her research-based position at Swerim, Tania Irebo Schwartz acts as a speaking partner across the value chain — connecting expertise, clarifying emerging requirements and helping companies understand where to start. Now, as she leads the development of a national initiative to prepare industry, she is bringing the right people together to build a shared foundation for readiness.
Where perspectives meet
Tania’s work places her at the intersection of regulation, technical questions and industrial practice. It gives her a multi-layered view of how digital product passports take shape in real companies, touching everything from material expertise and environmental data to IT systems, production processes, customer communication and regulatory developments.
She has followed the topic closely for several years, and that experience brings a sense of calm to an otherwise shifting landscape.
“I’ve been close to this topic for quite some time, and that helps me stay grounded when things shift or new questions appear,” she says.
Because the topic spans so many domains, no single department truly owns it. Companies often need to align perspectives that rarely meet in everyday work: sustainability specialists, quality teams, IT developers, production engineers and commercial functions. Navigating this requires not only someone who can move between these worlds, but also an environment where different kinds of expertise can meet.
This is where Swerim’s collective strengths come into play. In her role, Tania works alongside colleagues with deep knowledge in raw materials, product properties, sustainability, digitalisation and production technology. She often describes their competencies as complementary, forming pieces of a broader picture.
Seeing that whole picture, and helping others see it, is central to how she approaches the task.
“I wouldn’t call myself an expert,” Tania says. “But I’ve become a speaking partner, someone who understands enough across areas to help connect the dots and make the question manageable.”
Why a national initiative was needed
Long before the project was formalised, the signals from industry were clear. Companies across the metallic value chain kept returning to the same themes: uncertainty around the regulation, varying digital maturity, limited internal mandate to drive the topic, and a strong desire to understand what digital product passports would mean in practice.
Europe has launched several DPP pilots and research projects, but very few speak directly to this reality, where semi-finished steel and aluminium products, castings and other intermediates will face some of the earliest and most extensive requirements.
“This is where there has been a clear gap,” Tania explains. “We haven’t had a platform that brings together Swedish companies around their specific questions, especially for intermediate products, where the timelines are moving fastest.”
To address this gap, Swerim is coordinating a national implementation project within Impact Innovation: Swedish Metals & Minerals — a joint initiative by Vinnova, Energimyndigheten and Formas. The project, Digital Metal values: A collaborative initiative for efficient implementation of digital product passports, brings together 26 participating organisations from across the metallic value chain. From large steel and aluminium producers to technology providers and smaller companies with very different conditions, the initiative creates a shared space to understand what DPP implementation means in practice for semi-finished products.
More information about the programme can be found here:
https://www.vinnova.se/en/p/digital-metal-values---a-collaborative-initiative-for-efficient-implementation-of-digital-product-passports/
Behind the initiative lies a set of repeated needs:
- To build internal knowledge and confidence
- To move from speculation to clarity
- To see concrete, industry-relevant examples
- To have a space to ask questions and compare approaches
- To understand where and how to start based on their own maturity
The national readiness programme is not the first DPP initiative. But it is one of the first coordinated, sector-wide efforts aimed specifically at the metallic value chain and its upcoming obligations for steel and aluminium intermediates. The goal is not to eliminate uncertainty, since that is impossible while legislation evolves, but to organise companies around shared learning, stronger alignment and greater confidence in how to meet what comes next.
Different starting points, shared pressure
From Tania’s perspective, one of the clearest challenges is the spread in maturity across the sector.
“We see everything from small companies still working manually, to organisations that have already developed internal prototypes and strategies for DPP,” she says.
But maturity is only one part of the equation. Many companies have shown strong interest in participating, yet not all have had the internal mandate, time or prioritisation to fully engage. Some want to contribute but are still building knowledge internally. Others are eager but unsure where the responsibility should sit.
For a national initiative, this creates a balancing act: how do you design a shared effort that meets companies where they are without losing those who are further ahead or overwhelming those who are early in the journey?
With so many different needs, expectations and levels of preparedness, aligning the value chain becomes both necessary and challenging. It is not about setting one pace for everyone, but about helping each company understand its own starting point.
Opportunities emerging — across companies, competence and the wider ecosystem
Despite the uncertainties, Tania sees a range of opportunities taking shape: some commercial, others organisational, and many connected to learning and collaboration.
“In one of our pilot areas, companies can already see commercial potential. Customers are asking for specific information, in some cases information they’re willing to pay for.”
For her, this is an early signal that product passports can strengthen customer relationships and help companies communicate the unique value of their products.
There are also opportunities inside organisations. The initiative gives companies a structured moment to build knowledge, clarify data flows and bring together functions that rarely meet in everyday work. It creates space to ask questions, compare approaches and understand what the regulation might mean in practice.
Representation across the project adds another layer of potential.
“We have the whole value chain with us. That gives a broader understanding of what different actors need.”
For Tania, this diversity is one of the project’s strengths. It opens the door to a more harmonised view of information needs and expectations across the chain.
And then there is the ecosystem. During the preparation phase, far more technology providers reached out than she anticipated.
“That surprised me. It didn’t look like this a year ago.”
Rather than seeing this as noise, she sees a market gaining momentum. A moving landscape can accelerate innovation and give companies a stronger range of options, as long as they have a coordinated place to interpret what is happening.
In that sense, digital product passports become more than a compliance requirement. They become a catalyst for learning, for collaboration, and for forward-looking companies to position themselves early as the details continue to evolve.
"In one of our pilot areas, companies can already see commercial potential. Customers are asking for specific information, in some cases information they’re willing to pay for."
Priorities for the coming year
Looking ahead, Tania sees four priorities that will shape the coming year. The first is to get the pilot studies running, the practical core of the initiative. It is in the pilots that companies can test ideas, uncover gaps, compare approaches and translate the regulation into something concrete.
The second is to establish a clear communication and knowledge platform. Companies need a place to turn to, not only for updates, but to ask questions, build internal understanding and see examples from others in the value chain. A shared learning environment is essential while the regulation is still evolving.
A third priority is to strengthen the network itself. With broad representation across steel, aluminium, foundry, mining-linked actors and downstream users, the initiative now has the opportunity to create a more harmonised view of information needs and expectations. Maintaining that diversity, and making sure everyone gains something from the work, is key.
The fourth priority is readiness for EU clarity. Delegated acts, timelines and technical specifications will continue to shift, and companies need support to interpret new signals quickly and turn them into practical next steps.
“Starting somewhere matters,” Tania says. “Even choosing to wait should be an active decision, and companies need to be ready to move when things become clearer.”
A shared journey ahead
When asked whose perspectives she would be most interested in hearing as discussions around digital product passports continue, Tania points to organisations operating at a high level of complexity.
One example she mentions is an automotive OEM such as Volvo. Organisations that work across multiple materials and product categories, and that are likely to face several product-passport requirements in parallel, can offer valuable insights into how these questions are handled in practice.
“Someone with that level of complexity would bring an important perspective,” she says.
She also highlights the value of hearing from large industrial producers across Europe, such as major steel manufacturers navigating similar questions at scale. Their experiences could help broaden the understanding of how preparedness is taking shape across the region, and how different approaches are emerging in response to the same regulatory direction.
Rather than pointing to specific answers, her reflection underscores the importance of shared learning and exposure to different realities as the landscape continues to evolve.
In many ways, this perspective points to a deeper purpose behind the initiative. It is not about eliminating uncertainty or producing perfect answers. Instead, it is about creating the conditions the metallic value chain has long needed: a shared language, coordinated learning and the confidence to move forward while the details continue to evolve.
In a landscape where questions arrive faster than answers, voices like Tania’s play a quiet but important role. Not because they claim authority over the entire field, but because they help organisations understand the terrain, connect the right expertise and take meaningful steps amid uncertainty.
As the work continues, it is the combination of Swerim’s collective knowledge, the value chain’s broad representation and a rapidly developing ecosystem that will shape how Sweden prepares for digital product passports — not as isolated organisations, but as an industry learning, adapting and advancing together.