Lots of businesses are stuck between a rock called strained supply chains and a hard place known as swiftly rising demand for sustainable products. Fortunately, both the rock and the hard place can be bridged with RFID inlays – especially when Tageos EOS Zero™ inlays come in play.

For Tageos, sustainability is not a fad to capitalize on – it’s a large part of our company DNA. That fact is underlined by the sustainable, paper-based RFID inlays and tags on which Tageos has built its reputation. Recently, this was underlined during our contribution to the speaker program at Wireless IoT Tomorrow 2022, Europe's unique and largest event 100% focused on the latest technologies around IoT and RFID.

At the event in mid-October, Michael Baucke, Director Market Development at Tageos, explained "How RFID can help to enhance the sustainability of supply chains". The essence of his presentation is summarized here – and it boils down to one simple formula:

In supply chains, RFID increases efficiency and consequently sustainability, and does so even more if the inlays are considered as truly sustainable. Consequently, companies benefit most when EOS Zero™ inlays from Tageos are deployed.

• According to Capgemini Research, four out of five consumers (79%) are changing their purchase preferences based on the social or environmental impact of their purchases.

• In their latest CEO survey, Fortune/Deloitte found that production and/or logistics delays are considered a major challenge (alongside shortages of labor and input/raw materials). In the same survey, nearly half of the CEOs said that they planned enhanced sustainability and climate change initiatives.

• Capgemini concludes that RFID ranks number two among the technologies which are expected to bring progress in terms of sustainability, only beaten by Augmented/Virtual Reality solutions.

• In numerous real-world scenarios in the fashion industry, RFID has proven its ability to reduce overproduction by up to 13 % according to GS1. In their own calculations, McKinsey assumes 10%, hence an annual saving of 158 million tons of CO₂.

• Potential CO₂ savings offered by RFID dramatically outweigh the CO₂ footprint created by RFID. In the case of a Levi’s 501 pair of jeans, the CO₂ footprint of one of those items not produced equals the CO₂ footprint of about 4,000 EOS Zero Max inlays used to optimize the jeans supply chain.

• In the QSR (Quick Service Restaurants) sector and particularly in the food business, RFID offers huge potential for the reduction of loss and waste. According to GS1 US, the food service and retail grocery industries are showing significantly increased interest in RFID/EPC (Electronic Product Code) to leverage this potential.

• On top of that, RFID is generally accepted as a key factor for waste and loss reduction in the Pharma/Healthcare business. In the US, we see rapidly growing RFID adoption in compounded unit-dose medication, where Tageos’ EOS-202 U9 inlay -- the markets smallest ARC Spec S approved product -- comes into play.

• With its paper-based EOS Zero™ inlay family, Tageos offers an industry-leading portfolio of highly sustainable inlays that make the most of the inherent sustainability benefits RFID has to offer.