Onto-DESIDE: How Circularise helped build a common language for circular supply chains

The biggest barrier to a circular economy isn’t a lack of data. It’s that data is trapped in silos. Different industries use different software, different formats, and different terminology, so even when companies want to share information, they often can’t understand each other.

The Onto-DESIDE project set out to fix this. Funded under the EU’s Horizon Europe programme, the consortium of 12 partners across six countries built an Open Circularity Platform (OCP) powered by a shared data language (an “ontology”) that works across three industries: electronics, construction, and textiles. Circularise led the electronics use case, proving that its platform could connect to external systems and allow companies in completely different sectors to exchange data securely and automatically, without manual translation.

The result: a working proof of concept showing how a recycler in the automotive sector and a manufacturer in electronics can “speak the same language,” share verified data, and discover new circular value chains together.

• Cross-industry interoperability: Validated that the same data framework can work across electronics, construction, and textiles, breaking down the barriers between industrial data silos
• End-to-end product traceability: Traced a sound system and its individual components through their full lifecycle, from manufacture through repair and end-of-life
• Automated value chain discovery: Demonstrated that standardised data can automatically match waste streams from one industry to the raw material needs of another
• Secure data sharing: Confirmed that Circularise’s Smart Questioning technology can work with standardised data formats to protect confidential information while keeping data transparent and usable

Onto-DESIDE is a European consortium comprising Circularise, REIA, Linköping University, Ragn-Sells, Lindner, Texon, +ImpaKT, Circular Fashion, Concular, IMEC, University of Hamburg, and Prague University. Funded under the Horizon Europe programme, its mission is to overcome the lack of data-sharing standards that prevent the formation of new circular value networks.

The project leverages open standards for semantic data interoperability and a decentralised digital platform to make information understandable and usable for both humans and machines. By treating resource flows, information flows, and value flows as a single connected system, Onto-DESIDE supports the acceleration of the digital and green transitions across Europe.

Circularise is a supply chain traceability platform based in the Netherlands. Its patented Smart Questioning technology enables companies to share verified information across complex supply chains without revealing confidential data. Circularise’s platform provides the foundation for Digital Product Passports and simplifies compliance with regulations such as the ESPR.

Within Onto-DESIDE, Circularise led the industrial use case work package. This meant ensuring that the project’s technical data standards aligned with real-world industry needs, and providing the secure, decentralised communication protocol for data exchange across the consortium.

To move beyond theoretical models, the consortium needed a platform that could handle highly sensitive industrial data while maintaining interoperability across sectors. Traditional centralised databases create silos and security risks, which discourage companies from sharing the very data needed to fuel circularity. The Onto-DESIDE ontology provided the shared vocabulary. Circularise provided the secure infrastructure to put it into practice.

The solution needed to:

• Bridge the “semantic gap” by allowing different industries to use a shared vocabulary for material declarations
• Enable decentralised communication, so that no single entity controls all supply chain data
• Protect intellectual property through Smart Questioning, allowing companies to verify material properties without disclosing proprietary information
• Support complex product hierarchies, particularly for electronics where individual components have different lifecycles
• Enable Digital Product Passports for circular value flows that were previously impossible because of fragmented data
• Connect with different systems via APIs, linking Circularise with the project’s OCP platform so that data could flow between different software environments

Circularise was the partner capable of providing this secure infrastructure while actively contributing to the development of the underlying data standards, with a focus on electronics.

The project validated the ontology framework through three diverse use cases: electronics (led by Circularise), construction (led by Concular), and textiles (led by Circular Fashion and +ImpaKT). Here is what happened in the electronics use case.

Circularise worked with partners to ensure the Onto-DESIDE ontology could fit the electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) industry. This meant creating universal definitions for material data, so that a “plastic housing” or a “rare earth magnet” is described identically across the entire supply chain. It also included defining which data points needed to be traced along each value chain to support activities at different stages and prove compliance with regulations and standards.

Using a sound system as the pilot product, Circularise created a Digital Product Passport for the full assembly and each of its critical components. When a part of the sound system needed repair, the DPP provided the necessary material and technical data to the repair shop, so the component could be refurbished rather than discarded. The DPP was then updated to include the repair activity, ensuring that any future use of the sound system, or its eventual disposal, is informed by its complete history.

By making data “machine-readable” through the ontology, the system demonstrated how companies can automatically discover new partners. For example, the platform could identify that a specific electronic waste stream matches the material requirements of a manufacturer in a different sector, such as textiles or construction.

• Cross-industry interoperability achieved. Validated Circularise’s ability to map proprietary data to the Onto-DESIDE ontology, enabling seamless communication across different software systems. The same framework was applied successfully to electronics, construction, and textiles.
• Digital Product Passports deployed. Successfully traced a sound system and its components through manufacture, repair, and end-of-life, providing a blueprint for how DPPs can support the right to repair.
• Automated circularity discovered. Demonstrated that when data is standardised through ontologies, platforms can automatically match electronic waste streams to secondary raw material needs in other sectors.
• Enhanced material recovery. By providing clear data on rare earth elements and additives, the project increased the potential for high-value recycling of critical raw materials.
• Secure data sharing validated. Confirmed that Circularise’s Smart Questioning technology can work with standardised ontologies to deliver both privacy and transparency.
• Regulatory alignment. The project results directly support the data requirements for the EU’s Digital Product Passport mandate under the ESPR.

The Onto-DESIDE project has shown that Circularise’s platform can serve as a “translator” for global supply chains. The ontology-based approach developed in this project can now be scaled beyond the initial use cases into other sectors. Through its learnings from Onto-DESIDE, Circularise allows clients to benefit from standardised material declarations that are ready for the next generation of automated, AI-driven circular economy applications.

For the circular economy to function at scale, we need to solve the problem of data interoperability. The collaboration between Circularise and the Onto-DESIDE consortium shows that when companies speak the same digital language, they can collaborate more effectively, reduce waste, and build more resilient value chains.