The EU's Green Deal uses a Digital First strategy, in the form of Digital Product Passports, to collect and circulate lifecycle data among stakeholders. Put simply, data is the oxygen that breathes life into Europe's climate transition and freer, fairer trade, while growing the economy and preserving their incredible quality of life.

The European Union's Green Deal is the most consequential internal change to the Single Market's industrial, trade, climate and consumer policies than anything since its founding. The EU newly rewrote, interlinked, aligned and are enforcing all their laws around carbon neutrality, strategic autonomy, level playing fields and the move from linear to circular economies. You read that correctly: The EU set binding, enforceable and irreversible legal targets of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

The EU's theory of change is that reaching for the goals of carbon neutrality, circularity and strategic autonomy are imperative for the future of Europe. The strategy to reach these goals is to Data First. Digitized supply chains are the foundation of the European Commission's "twin transitions" to sustainable economies and carbon neutrality. In practical terms, that will look like data-first supply chains, which circulate data between stakeholders. Put simply, data is the oxygen that breathes life into the climate transition and freer, fairer trade, while growing Europe's economy and preserving their incredible quality of life.

Externally, the EU is making moves, too. Until February 2022, regulations were focused on climate. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a newly swaggering China, and the pandemic caused the EU to lean-in, accelerate and flex these goals, while simultaneously leaning-back from full globalization. A notable change is that rich countries now regard material and energy supply chains and policy coordination as vital to their economic interests and national security.

The Green Deal will be hugely disruptive and consequential—also binding, enforceable, irreversible and rolling out now. We have a medium-to-high confidence level in our analysis that the efforts have a high chance of accomplishing the EU's goals. Digitized supply chains are the sea change.