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Jonathan Baker is the chief commercial officer at Fabacus, and will be joining the Transparency roundtable at Licensing Expo in Las Vegas this month.

“ If you’ve been following the myriad white papers, directives, regulations, and standards from legislative and regulatory bodies since 2019, you’ll be aware of the emerging requirements for some companies to report their scope 3 carbon emissions and for manufacturers to ensure an extended set of product data be captured digitally in what has become known in Europe as a Digital Product Passport.

While the exact nature of the new product level data will differ by product category, there will be a common set of product data required across all categories. This standard and extended product level information is likely to include material composition, supply chain and sourcing data, environmental footprint data, and recyclability information.

The emphasis for the provision of the Digital Product Passport will fall to the ultimate manufacturer of those products – the licensee. In turn,

Rhys Fleming is the sales and marketing director at Dependable Solutions. Rhys, what does DS do for sustainability in licensing and what are you bringing to the transparency in licensing roundtable?

“ Firstly, thanks Products of Change for organising the roundtable and inviting us to be a part of it. It’s a privilege to engage with licensing professionals looking to improve their sustainability.

We believe a rising tide lifts all boats. And as a software services provider, we’ve been helping brand owners, licensing agencies, and licensees operate more efficiently and effectively for almost 20 years.

Approvals, royalty reporting, asset sharing, systems integrations

To mark Licensing Expo’s official Day of Purpose this year, Products of Change will be hosting a special roundtable, bringing the industry’s service providers together for the first time to discuss the first and next steps towards industry transparency. Let’s get to know the key players… licensors that fulfil certain criteria will have to declare their scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions. Clearly, there is change coming for all parties involved that will involve licensors, licensees, manufacturers, and retailers. Future proofing businesses of all types through digitally identifying and enabling products is becoming a mandated requirement, with data and technology being the key enabler. Fabacus helps clients on this journey and specialises in building digital product catalogues linking the licensor and licensee at product level. Fabacus is also pioneering a global product identification standard for the licensing industry, establishing a digital link for each product between your brand, supply chain, and consumers. ”

– we’ve been able to turn all the amazing licensing data our clients are holding into information and actionable insights they can use to grow and plot a course for the future. The flexibility of our system has allowed us to support our clients in their efforts to do things like add more complex workflows, collect and report on sustainability related metrics, and keep records of manufacturer’s sustainability credentials. We’ve found that measuring the progress made against sustainability targets is a great motivator and way to focus efforts. As they say, what gets measured, gets done. The conversation around sustainability is evolving and that’s extremely exciting. It’s a fantastic opportunity to grow and discover new things. There’s so much more to be done, and we can’t wait to explore this further with everyone at Licensing Expo. ”

Timo Olkkola is the co-founder of Flowhaven and a founder member of the Products of Change Transparency Workstream. Timo, tell us about the evolving relationship service providers have with the industry’s sustainable journey.

“ Brands now aim to be more sustainable and transparent in their licensing business and helping licensors and agencies capture and understand their data is at the core of what service providers do in licensing. Especially important are the relationships between brand owners and manufacturers.

Unfortunately, data doesn’t often move well between these parties and the geographical distance between them doesn’t help. Having agreed KPIs and reports in place is vital for both parties to work together to create the most sustainable licensed products for fans. It also helps licensing teams determine whether KPIs are being reached. Having clean and well-structured data is the key to creating and managing sustainable licensing partnerships. Increasingly, brand owners are shifting focus from pure royalty recoupment calculations to ‘value licensing’, where royalties’ monetary value and marketing effect are combined to create the full value of the licensing deal.

Agreeing on rule sets with your partners regarding materials, certifications, values, and expected results will be key and POC has a great agreement format for this to share with members.

Achieving transparency in the licensing programme is a challenge. The important metrics are often hidden between the lines rather than in the actual agreements. But this can be fixed by having a robust analytical tool in use. It’s one of the reasons we released Flowhaven’s licensing analytics recently. It aims to answer the relevant questions in record time. A demo of the licensing analytics can be seen at Flowhaven’s booth at the Las Vegas Licensing Expo. ”