CIRCULAR DATA CENTRES (CDC)
GCN's Circular Data Centres review and populate Digital Product Passports on your behalf — either for an individual brand's own product range, or coordinated across an entire industry association's membership — so verifiable, United Nations Transparency Protocol (UNTP) aligned data reaches Digital Product Passports efficiently, however large the operation.
Self-Populate: brands purchase blank washable RFID tags and populate DPPs themselves through the GCN app using GCN linked RFID Readers - see DPP PACKAGES
CDC for Brands: GCN's Circular Data Centre populates DPPs on a brand's behalf, then sends pre-populated tags directly to their manufacturers.
CDC for Associations: GCN works with industry associations to build centralised and decentralised data infrastructure across their whole membership.
Brands who want to show verifiable product data on Digital Product Passports can work with GCN to get ahead of upcoming regulations and support their products' place in a circular economy - including the EU's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and similar frameworks emerging globally. For many brands plus upstream textile, trims and manufacturing businesses, the scale of this task is significant.
For example, India's textile sector illustrates the scale of the challenge: over 100,000 textile manufacturing units and approximately 77,000 garment manufacturing units, including around 27,000 domestic manufacturers, 48,000 fabricators (job contractors), and roughly 1,000 manufacturer-exporters. Every one of these businesses selling into the EU will eventually need to add verifiable data at the product level before a shipment can pass EU customs.
How this works with UNTP
GCN's Digital Product Passports are built on the UN Transparency Protocol (UNTP) — a UN/CEFACT global standard for supply chain traceability, developed to be free to use and openly governed. UNTP defines a shared way of structuring and discovering supply chain data, so a product's data can be recognised and read across different platforms and jurisdictions, rather than being locked into one proprietary system. Aligning with this shared structure is what allows CDC-populated data to remain usable and interoperable well beyond GCN's own platform, reducing the cost and friction of re-entering or re-verifying the same data for different markets or partners.
Brands purchase blank washable RFID tags and follow the steps in the GCN app to populate their own DPPs, which are then added to products directly. This option does not include GCN's Impact Certification, since the data hasn't been reviewed by GCN's Circular Data Centre — it reflects data the brand has entered and stands behind itself.
See information below on Impact Certification and learn more about CIRCULAR METRICS.
Option 2: CDC for Individual Brands
How it works
Brands complete Upstream Data Sheets — structured, plain-language data sheets covering:
Product and material composition (fibre types, blends, origin)
Traceability information (facility records, business registration)
Certifications held (with supporting documentation)
Substances of Concern disclosures
Country of origin and relevant customs/HS classification codes
EPR scheme registration details, where applicable
GCN's Circular Data Centre reviews the submitted data and populates it onto washable RFID tags, creating the product DPPs.
Physical tags are sent to the brand's product manufacturers, who add them to the products during manufacturing.
Manufacturers are authorised on the brand's behalf to complete two steps, using an RFID reader connected to the GCN app:
Bulk scan on receipt — confirming the tags have arrived and are ready to attach to products as they're manufactured.
Bulk scan into Consumer Privacy Mode — once products are packaged and ready for distribution, a bulk scan switches every item's tag into Privacy Mode, so the product's identifier stays private for as long as it's with a consumer.
Manufacturers can also link transport and distribution partners — customs agents, import/export representatives — via API, so shipment milestones don't need to be manually re-entered if they already exist in a partner's own system. Get in touch with GCN's team to discuss connecting existing logistics or ERP systems.
See information below on Impact Certification and learn more about CIRCULAR METRICS.
Option 3: CDC for Industry Associations
GCN works directly with industry associations and export promotion bodies to coordinate data collection at scale across their entire membership, rather than expecting each individual manufacturer to navigate DPP requirements alone. This creates centralised and decentralised data infrastructure that makes verifiable data collection efficient and consistent across a whole sector, not just one brand at a time. Verified data collected this way becomes available to be added to member brands'/customers DPPs at scale.
GCN's Impact Certification — what verification actually means
DPPs built through either CDC option (Brands or Associations) carry GCN's Impact Certification, showing the underlying data has been reviewed by GCN's own team before being added to a Digital Product Passport — not a self-declared, unchecked upload.
Important limit on this claim: GCN's verification confirms that the required evidence — standards, audits, certifications — has genuinely been submitted and matches the claim being made. GCN does not independently investigate whether the underlying evidence itself is authentic or was fraudulently produced by a third party. Impact Certification reflects that GCN has checked the evidence exists and is consistent, not that GCN has audited the certifying body's own conduct. GCN's due diligence Certification shows regulators that a Brands evidence has been checked and will assist in establishing compliance.
