IN BRIEF. Global Circular Network's B2B app is linked to washable UHF RFID tags housed in textile based products creating unique identifiers: Digital Product Passports (DPPs) plus PRODUCT IDs for brands to share with consumers via QR Codes and swing tags.

GCN is a B2B platform built around product-only data — at every stage, the app is structurally unable to capture consumer or personal information. It's designed for value chain actors: brands, manufacturers, mills, retailers, resellers, repairers, sorters, recyclers, logistics providers and authorised third-party platforms, working from a single shared, verifiable product record - able to capture and share bulk data at scale. 

GCN is item-level by architecture (serialised EPC per physical tag) following the United Nations Transparency Protocol (UNTP) data framework for global data interoperability. GCN batches are defined by the scan set, anchored to item-level EPCs. GCN's approach attaches evidence and disclosure to the item record and makes non-disclosure itself visible so regulators can spot anomalies in CSV exports. 

The Seven Stages of the GCN APP

Each stage in the app is its own screen in the app, built for a specific role in the value chain. You can scan a single item for full on-screen detail, or bulk-scan a batch and download the results as a CSV. 

1. Upstream - Where the Digital Product Passport is first populated - also created a PRODUCT ID (QR code and swing tag)

2. OUT. Consumer Privacy Mode - active in the network → privacy mode at sale → reactivated at take-back → privacy mode again at re-sale, etc

3. Authenticate - Verify a product is genuine, instantly.

4. Downstream - post-sale. Brands can present RFID tags as "Product Passports"
Track what happens to a product after it's sold.

5. Sorting - Separate items by material and chemical content before they move on.

6. End-of-Life Recycling - Close the loop — and the record.

7. Diversion Data - for the EPR and sorters to close off the DPP (washable RFID may be reusable, reset, resold for items that don't require the full washability eg homewares, mattresses) and to calcuate the 'waste' resources (scraps, unusable items) that are pre-sorted and sent for sorting and to communicate the essential veriable data on textile breakdown, dyes, finishes, chemicals etc - and then onto recycling or remanufacture into new products - supporting formuales and certification.

GCN's is a Registered Software Vendor for the United Nations Transparency Protocol (UNTP). GCN's DPP data architecture follows the UNTP data framework for global data interoperability.
Learn more about UNTP →

The platform adopts UNTP vocabulary and structural principles throughout — Digital Product Passports (DPP), Digital Traceability Events (DTE), and Digital Conformity Credentials (DCC) — with W3C Verifiable Credentials and trust graph capability as production-stage deliverables.

The platform has been designed to align with adopted and emerging regulatory requirements — including the EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (ECGT), Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) frameworks, the Waste Framework Directives and REACH chemical disclosure obligations — and is built to remain agile as global policies continue to develop.

Standards, regulations and policies
These remain advisory and regulatory references pending final adopted criteria, and may change as global policies develop.
See globalcircularnetwork.com/about-us/sources

BULK SCANNING WASHABLE RFID TAGS
Brands can add GCN's washable RFID tags either by sewing or slipping tags inside products or inside a separate "Product Passport"  - it is 'activated' when it reaches authorised B2B providers to collect and share product-only data. 

Access to the GCN App via a RFID READER is free for EPR R-CYCLERS; accessing unfakeable authenticated product data instantly, plus working in 'partnership' with brands to assist them in meeting regulatory requirements.

Brands can offer consumers a separate third-party Customer Passport to download, which is not offered by GCN.

CONSUMER PRIVACY - active in the network → privacy mode at sale → reactivated at take-back → privacy mode again at re-sale, etc
The RFID tag access is B2B only, is passive, battery-free and cannot collect consumer data. It also switches OFF to privacy mode at sales (first sale, resell, rent, repair etc). The pattern holds for every loop of the product's life: visible to the GCN network, invisible in the wardrobe.

Data gets created, accessed and updated as a product travels around a global circular economy — from manufacturing, through to EPR R-CYCLERS (resale, repair, redesign, reuse, rent) and into sorting using verifiable, traceable textile data (plus identify Substances of Concern to divert) and finally end-of-life recycling - to close the DPP (store data) then recycle and reuse the durable, washable RFID tags.

GS1 COMPLIANT. Brands own GS1 barcode, if they already have one — identifies the product model (style/size/ colour), the same across every unit. Not the same thing as each tag's unique RFID ID (EPC) which identifies one physical item and differs per tag (unique identifier) even across identical units in the same batch. GCN doesn't purchase, issue, or validate GTINs — enter your own if a retail/marketplace partner requires one for their systems; leave blank otherwise. ESPR itself only requires a resolvable unique identifier, which the RFID serial already satisfies.

AFFORDABLE, EFFICIENT DPP PLATFORM - Designed for the 99.8%
99.8% of Europe's textile and clothing companies are micro, small and medium-sized enterprises — nearly 89% have fewer than ten employees (Euratex, Facts & Key Figures). These businesses are not outside product-level rules and the GCN RFID DPP will help them to efficiently substantiate claims for compliance. Anti-greenwashing requirements under the ECGT* apply from September 2026 with no size exemption, DPP obligations under ESPR apply per product placed on the EU market, and EPR fees are charged per unit.

Most MSMEs do not have the compliance teams that large brands do. GCN is deliberately designed and priced for them: the platform carries the product-level data burden — verified claims, chemical disclosure, traceability events, EPR reporting — so that a five-person brand can meet the same product transparency standard as a five-thousand-person one.

To support equitable access, particularly for MSMEs and NFP's, the first reader connected to the GCN APP is an affordable Chafon handheld reader.  More devices — fixed readers, robotics, and API links into upstream and downstream business systems — are planned as the platform develops.

*Green Claims Directive regulations are currently suspended however the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (ECGT, 2024/825) enforcement is beginning 27 September 2026. The GCN Platform is adaptable to add full LCA/PEF module in Stage 2 — if ESPR's textile delegated act mandates specific footprint methodologies, the data model now has the field to receive the number.

Circular Performance Profile - Substantiate Claims with UNTP
Every environmental claim in a GCN Digital Product Passport is structured the way regulators now expect claims to be substantiated:

Quantified. The platform captures the figure, not just the tick — "50% post-consumer recycled polyester," "Martindale 30,000 rubs," "6.5 kg CO2e per unit (ISO 14067)" — because quantified claims backed by evidence are the substantiable form recognised under EU anti-greenwashing rules.

Evidenced. A claim marked as implemented requires an evidence type and a linked credential. Claims in development are explicitly labelled self-declarations — the platform distinguishes what is verified from what is asserted, and shows the difference to every reader.

Attributed through the full trust chain. Each credential in GCN's shared Credential Library records the scheme (e.g. GOTS), the certification body that audited against it (e.g. Control Union, ECOCERT), and where applicable the testing laboratory — the roles defined in ISO-CASCO conformity assessment vocabulary, which the UNTP Digital Conformity Credential is built on. In the production build, each of these roles becomes a link in a verifiable trust graph.

Across conformity domains. Credentials are categorised by domain — sustainability and environment, chemical safety, social and labour, quality and performance — reflecting that product conformity extends beyond environmental claims alone.

One passport, every market

A GCN Digital Product Passport is entered once and serves every market a product is sold into. Market-specific disclosure fields load per jurisdiction — the EU module covers REACH/SVHC and ESPR requirements today — and additional jurisdiction modules are added as regulations develop, without re-entering product data. For brands selling across the EU, UK, US, Asia-Pacific and beyond, this is the difference between one compliance record and five.