The European project GRETA and its goals
A small piece of technology often goes unnoticed, yet it is becoming essential for tracking and managing products throughout transportation and use: the radio-frequency identification tag, better known as RFID. Already used on goods and packaging, RFID technology is expected to become even more pervasive in the coming years, carrying and transmitting key information about the products it accompanies. Even when attached to packaging specifically designed to minimize environmental impact, these tags can prevent the package from being fully recyclable. Conventional RFIDs are electronic devices made from silicon, metals, and other materials that are difficult to recover and recycle at the end of their life.
To address this issue, the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) is coordinating GRETA, a European research project that aims to completely rethink RFID technology, looking to a future in which these devices become ubiquitous. The goal is to redesign RFID tags according to the principles of the circular economy. Coordinated by Mario Caironi, Principal Investigator at IIT’s Center for Nano Science and Technology in Milan, the project began in January 2025 and will run until December 2028. GRETA brings together seven partners from Italy, the Netherlands, Serbia, Belgium, Portugal, and the United Kingdom.
RFID tags play a crucial role in modern supply chains. They enable product identification, track goods throughout logistics networks, monitor transportation conditions and facilitate payments. Their function is to store information and wirelessly transmit it to a digital reader when activated by a radio signal.
A typical RFID tag consists of a substrate, usually plastic or paper, on which a metallic antenna and a silicon microchip are mounted. Although each tag contains only tiny amounts of electronic material, the scale of deployment is enormous. As RFID technology becomes integrated into billions of products and packages worldwide, these seemingly insignificant devices collectively risk becoming a substantial source of electronic waste. Their large-scale recovery and recycling remain difficult, because RFID tags are small, inexpensive, and widely dispersed.
Within GRETA, which stands for Green, Organic and Printed Ultra-High Frequency Identification Tags, researchers are tackling the problem by considering the entire lifecycle of RFID tags, from manufacturing to end-of-life management. The project combines the principles of sustainability with advances in organic electronics, an approach that replaces conventional silicon-based components with carbon-based electronic inks. These materials will be synthesized and formulated using processes that avoid toxic solvents, rely mainly on water and other sustainable solvents and minimize energy consumption.
Paper has been selected as the preferred substrate material, while inkjet printing, the same technology used in many office printers, will be employed to print electronic circuits directly onto the paper surface. Most of the resulting tag components are expected to be biodegradable, while the few elements that still require metallic materials will be specifically designed for recovery and reuse.
Each GRETA partner contributes specialized expertise to achieve the project’s technological and sustainability objectives. IIT is responsible for developing the printed microelectronic components that store and process information and enable wireless communication, building on its extensive experience in high-performance organic electronics. The University of Milano-Bicocca is developing sustainable synthetic routes for organic semiconductors and formulating them into environmentally friendly inks. Portuguese association Almascience is focusing on biodegradable substrate materials. Researchers at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia, are designing and manufacturing carbon-based antennas, while Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands is responsible for component modelling and the overall electronic design of the RFID system.
Completing the picture, the University of Liège in Belgium is conducting a comprehensive life-cycle assessment of every component and evaluating the environmental footprint of the technology from production through disposal. These analyses will provide quantitative evidence of the sustainability benefits of the solutions developed within GRETA and allow direct comparisons with current RFID technologies.
Funded under the European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder programme, GRETA is also part of the broader Responsible Electronics Portfolio, a European initiative connecting nine research projects dedicated to sustainable electronics. By sharing expertise across disciplines and technologies, the initiative aims to establish common guidelines that can support both future research and the transfer of innovations from the laboratory to industrial applications. What appears to be a simple label may become the starting point for an electronics supply chain that considers the impact of every product from design to end of life.
