Korea’s Departure in the LCA·DPP Era:
Catena-X and Data Sovereignty Reorganize OEM Supply Chains

Korea’s manufacturing timetable—including the automotive industry—has been moved forward. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and the Digital Product Passport (DPP) are no longer “paperwork for reporting,” but the admission ticket to the global supply chain and a trading condition that determines corporate survival. Busan showed that transition on the ground. What appeared was not a plant-level ESG report, but a real-time, data-driven value-chain operating system spanning parts and materials, sourcing and logistics, through to recycling—presented with concrete technology and methods. Korean companies can no longer remain mere “submitters of data.” What matters now is speed in regulatory response, integrity of reporting, precision of execution—less “who ordered it” and more “who moves first”—and securing supply-chain competitiveness based on carbon efficiency and data sovereignty. I attended the “Strategy Conference for LCA·DPP to Strengthen Export Competitiveness.”

By | Sang-Min Han _ han@autoelectronics.co.kr

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“Editor-in-chief, you really must come to Busan!”
It was an urgent message from Jimin Jeong, Partner at Dassault Systèmes.
When I arrived on site, it was no exaggeration. Busan was launching Korea’s preparation for the shift to LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) and DPP (Digital Product Passport) to safeguard global supply-chain competitiveness in manufacturing.

Recently, Dassault Systèmes Korea signed an MOU with SK AX, IBCT, and Cofinity-X (the official operator of Catena-X) to promote an integrated LCA–DPP project, bringing on board Tresworks, a consulting firm for international standards certification. Together they held the “Strategy Conference for LCA·DPP to Strengthen Export Competitiveness” at Paradise Hotel Busan.
What they aim to build is not a simple reporting system. It is a global onboarding infrastructure that automates BOM-based LCA and Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) data and exchanges it securely to the Catena-X standard—the starting point that connects Korean companies to the future supply chain.

Why Busan?
The Yeongnam region is a symbolic axis of Korean manufacturing, densely linking automotive and parts, shipbuilding and machinery, chemicals and refining, and energy and battery materials. Port logistics are national competitiveness itself. Launching LCA·DPP here sends a message: “Carbon is no longer a reporting issue but a condition for survival and trade.”
Until now, OEMs and large Tier-1s mainly operated plant-centric ESG reporting systems. After Europe’s battery regulations, however, LCA·DPP has become a real-time data system that expands from plants → parts → raw materials → recycling. Catena-X integration and the battery passport are only the starting point.

The question is whether we can lift thousands of suppliers together. If the entire supply chain is not connected, our export ecosystem will shake. Korea’s manufacturing timetable has indeed been moved forward.
Dassault Systèmes provides a BOM–LCA automation system via the 3DEXPERIENCE platform; SK AX supports Catena-X onboarding. IBCT’s certified Infirium platform enables actual DPP·PCF exchange, and Tresworks handles certification. Cofinity-X is the gateway to Europe’s automotive data space.
“Will we report carbon—or compete on carbon?” Korea is exiting the regulation-centric era and entering a race for low-carbon product competitiveness based on LCA·DPP. Carbon is now price, brand, and a sourcing condition. Data is not a file; it is a real-time operating asset.




 

The Rules of the Game LCA Is Changing

“ We are moving beyond the era of asking where carbon was produced to an era of asking for whom it was produced.”
So said Seok-Jin Hong, CEO of LCA consultancy Tresworks. He explains that LCA is not a mere environmental technique, but a paradigm that changes the very basis of carbon responsibility.

Traditionally, emissions have been calculated by place of production—which makes China the biggest emitter under that lens. But Hong asks:
“Where are those products ultimately consumed? If Europe and the U.S. use what China makes, should China bear full responsibility?”

From this question emerges a new standard: embedded carbon borne at the point of consumption—including where materials came from, their recycled content, and the processes they underwent. In other words, consumption is no longer weightless; the carbon from a product’s raw materials, manufacturing, use, and disposal becomes part of the consumer’s responsibility. In parallel, discussions are advancing on allocating responsibility rationally among producers, consumers, and investors.

Why so fast a shift? The backdrop is the idea of a carbon budget. To keep global warming below 1.5 °C, there is a finite amount of carbon humanity can emit—and warnings that nearly half is already spent mean there is no room to look the other way. Managing only in-plant emissions won’t hit the target; we must integrate the entire life cycle from sourcing and design through use and recycling.

Europe’s strategy overlays this. Post-pandemic, Europe made manufacturing reshoring a national policy. When one standard applies across the entire supply chain, overseas production loses advantage and manufacturing is pulled back to Europe. The infrastructure that underpins this shift is DPP, data spaces, and digital twins—a structure where carbon information moves as real-time, verifiable data, not files.

This change is flowing beyond regulation into markets. Public procurement, consumers, and finance now prefer low-carbon products; companies are moving past mere compliance to build real-time operations and optimization by integrating product, supply-chain, and production data. As data accumulates, AI begins to make design and operations decisions—what Hong calls the “autonomization of industry.”

“It’s a market where standing still is falling behind. The goal isn’t to duck rules but to emit even 1 g less carbon than competing products. The core isn’t granular LCA per se but the system that moves that data. Only firms that bind regulation, market, and digital together will gain the next level of competitiveness,” Hong said.


 

Catena-X and Data Spaces:

The Shift of the Industrial Operating System

If Hong mapped LCA’s backdrop and direction, Hangro Yoon, ESG Lead at SK AX, spoke to how companies should technically understand and implement the transition.
“To truly grasp LCA and DPP, you must understand data spaces. If you’re in automotive, Catena-X is essential. Seeing U.S./China-centric cloud ecosystems harden, Germany began preparing a different path 20 years ago.”

Imagine multiple companies co-authoring a book. The U.S. model is a centralized structure where everyone shares one book. Europe’s data spaces let each party own its own page and exchange only what’s needed under conditions—maintaining data sovereignty while connecting just enough on a trust basis. To translate this philosophy into technology, Germany created the IDS (International Data Spaces) standard under Industrie 4.0, evolving it into Gaia-X. Today, the Eclipse Data Connector is the international standard, and Catena-X is built on it.

Catena-X is operated by Cofinity-X. Its board includes Europe’s OEMs and companies representing European manufacturing strength—BASF, Bosch, Siemens, SAP, and others. LCA and DPP may look like environmental regulation, but in reality they are economic strategy to defend European manufacturing. From the EU Green Deal through the Climate Law, Circular Economy, and CSRD to today’s ESPR, the flow is shifting from company-level to product-level governance, and from file-based reporting to real-time data connections.

“This isn’t a tech project—it’s an industrial strategy. More than 250 data spaces are already operating worldwide. Korea is behind. We must move faster,” Yoon said.

Catena-X will require PCF submissions from 2025. Batteries become mandatory by February 2027. Companies need to install data connectors and be ready to send/receive data. Next comes DPP: durability, quality, recycled content, and environmental impacts are transparently managed and shared via the Catena-X data space under controlled permissions.
Once data connects, response patterns change—from top-down to bottom-up problem-solving as supply-chain data syncs in real time. It’s no longer about dodging rules, but about opening new supply-chain opportunities and market access.

“Get on the data space and markets open. Fail to, and you naturally drift out of supply chains. Don’t prepare reports—automate internal data and build collaboration across your supply chain. It’s no longer optional; it’s obligatory.”


 

Building BOM-Based LCA

The core question now is how companies implement LCA and DPP on the ground—and at the center of the answer is Dassault Systèmes’ BOM-based LCA operating model. Junbeom Kwak Partner of Dassault Systèmes explained why BOM-based LCA is pivotal to carbon reduction in manufacturing and how to realize it on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.

Global environmental rules are moving beyond basic reporting to demand precise, product-level carbon data. Industry guidelines including Catena-X Rulebook 3.0 presuppose PCF submissions not only by OEMs but across the entire supply chain. The supply chain has become a system of “evidence and data exchange.”

Here, BOM-based LCA is the key. The BOM is the backbone of product structure, extending beyond product information to design, manufacturing, and sourcing. It directly fulfills the “full life-cycle transparency” required by ISO 14044/14067 and Catena-X rules. BOM-based LCA calculates carbon at part and sub-assembly levels and tracks accurate carbon information via top-level roll-ups. Real-time monitoring and scenario comparisons are possible.

“In the past, the first thing OEMs asked suppliers about was quality. Now, carbon transparency and reduction potential will become the new criteria,” Kwak noted.
For example, even the same product can vary widely in emissions depending on frame material, production location, and transportation mode. BOM-based LCA lets you simulate options at the design stage to pre-design and deliver the lowest-carbon option.






 

Why, then, a 3DEXPERIENCE-based integrated LCA?
Because single-product calculations are not enough. Targets, data collection, analysis, and reduction activities must run within an integrated environment spanning design–manufacturing–sourcing–operations. A PLM-based system must manage multi-level changes and detect carbon risks in real time. Dassault Systèmes’ Virtual Twin concept synchronizes the physical world with the 3D design environment in real time, linking design and simulation; all processes are operated with dashboards and collaboration features.

Kwak also described the linkage with Tresworks and IBCT. Once a data contract is established on IBCT’s Infirium platform, product/asset information flows into the 3DEXPERIENCE LCA system. Tresworks standardizes on-site data and inputs it into the solution; Dassault Systèmes executes the carbon-reduction process. The converted PCF data is sent to the data space, and via the DPP framework can be submitted in report form upon requests from upper tiers—an operational scenario designed with Catena-X connectivity in mind.

Dassault Systèmes’ LCA procedure can be summarized in four steps:
▶ Goal & Scope Definition: set the subject, period, and system boundary
▶ Life-Cycle Inventory Analysis: quantify inputs/outputs from raw materials–production–transport–use–recycling
▶ Life-Cycle Impact Assessment: apply methods such as EPS, TRACI, ReCiPe, EF 3.0, IPCC
▶ Interpretation & Optimization: analyze results, compare alternatives, and iteratively optimize on the BOM basis

“When LCA-based analysis and design-stage target setting are in place, companies can achieve real carbon-reduction goals. A product BOM-based LCA is not optional—it’s the foundation of manufacturing competitiveness,” Kwak emphasized.

 

The Only Gateway to Catena-X

DPP is not product-unit carbon data; it is a passport that digitally connects the entire supply chain. Composition of materials/parts, traceability, recycling information, and specifications are unified—and in automotive, the Catena-X standard has effectively become the global benchmark. As noted above, the EU has already put DPP regulation into effect: it becomes mandatory for batteries from February 2027, and will expand thereafter to electronics, plastics, tires, and more.

“Data—including carbon—is no longer a report; it is an admission ticket through the supply chain and a commercial asset for companies. Our goal is to help Korean companies access global OEMs while protecting data sovereignty,” said Jongryun Lee, CEO of IBCT.

IBCT provides Infirium, a data-exchange platform that securely connects LCA-based PCF data with the Catena-X ecosystem. Infirium remains the only Catena-X-officially-certified SaaS platform in Korea, with the same grade of certification as SAP, Siemens, and T-Mobile, and it supports core functions such as DPP, traceability, and PCF. Infirium features blockchain-based tamper-prevention, QR-based scopes for information disclosure, and auto-generation of LCA/PCF reports. Considering realities in Korean manufacturing, IBCT also adopted an on-premises approach, keeping sensitive data on internal servers and sharing only necessary information selectively.
IBCT is preparing interoperability with Japan’s “Uranos,” China’s data spaces, and Korea’s K-Data Space, anticipating the data-exchange network will ultimately expand into a global one.


 

Data Sovereignty: A New Standard for Korean Manufacturing

Carbon is now market currency, and data is not a report file but an operating asset that moves the supply chain. LCA·DPP is not about regulatory box-ticking; it is about execution power based on data, and the ability to prove that execution by oneself. Along the way, data sovereignty becomes an unavoidable strategic keyword. The core question: will we be an industry that submits to someone else’s rules, or one that sets the standards and maintains initiative?

That is why this pioneers’ project, launched from the heart of port logistics and manufacturing supply chains, is a departure aimed at transforming even Korea’s small and mid-sized manufacturers into data-driven competitors.

“Dassault Systèmes has a clear reason for joining this consortium: to go beyond simple data connectivity to actually reduce carbon and build a system that proves it with data. The key is for Korea to protect its own data sovereignty while maintaining industrial competitiveness,”
said Hyun Kim, Partner at Dassault Systèmes Korea.

AEM(오토모티브일렉트로닉스매거진)