Congratulations and a warm welcome to the newly elected board members: Christine Beck-Sablonski (Schneider Electric), Dr. Klaus Dickmann (Siemens), Dr. Juergen Schloesser (B. Braun Gruppe) as well as Artur Bondza (Pepperl+Fuchs Gruppe), Timm Simon Hauschke (Eplan), Oliver Hillermeier (SAP) who were re-elected by the members of the ECLASS association during the ECLASS General Assembly last week!

The digital battery passport aims to promote sustainability and transparency of batteries, reduce environmental pollution and support the recycling of batteries. From 2027, the battery passport will be the first digital product passport in the EU to become mandatory for industrial and car batteries. ECLASS Release 15.0 already offers all structures and functions for the battery passport.

After over 150.000 change requests were submitting during the ALPHA phase, another 125.000 change requests were added during the BETA phase. The BETA version has been available for testing by experts in the ECLASS community since mid-August. Feedback on the BETA version will be accepted until September 15, 2024.

ECLASS is an open Standard that is constantly evolving to incorporate new content or respond to changes in the marketplace. The ECLASS Standard is therefore never "finished". - But who "makes" the Standard? Who develops and decides what will be included in a new release?

ECLASS Sharepoint users can look forward to significantly increased performance and collaboration: The new ECLASS Sharepoint will be available in mid-October 2024! The update brings many improvements that will make working together considerably easier and more efficient.

We are pleased to announce an exciting new addition to our customer service team: Cody, a ChatBot who joins us as a virtual assistant!

Elsewhere in the world, forests are being cleared to produce agricultural products for consumption in the European Union (EU). To combat deforestation and forest degradation worldwide, the European Union adopted the Deforestation Regulation in June 2023. In addition to timber, the regulation covers soy, cocoa, coffee, cattle and rubber, as well as products made from them, such as furniture and seals.

Together with the experts of the ECLASS working group, Christian Block has published a Technical Specification for ECLASS as a Resource Description Framework (RDF). In this interview, he talks about the challenges of the project and the importance of RDF for the future of digital standards.