Source: sources/whitepapers/2022-04-25-data-commons-final.pdf
(Markdown twin: sources/whitepapers/2022-04-25-data-commons-final/2022-04-25-data-commons-final.md)
The original Data Commons whitepaper — published April 2022 by SINE Foundation, Deutsche Bank, Systemiq, and TLGG Consulting. This is the foundational paper the 2023 DPP paper (sine-dpp-data-commons-2023) builds on and had flagged as an ingestion gap.
Main authors: Aurel Stenzel & Tell Münzing (SINE), Lavinia Bauerochse & Dr. Shivaji Dasgupta (Deutsche Bank), Dr. Manuel Braun, Dr. Felix Philipp & Tilmann Vahle (Systemiq).
What it argues
Carbon accounting, digital product passports, and ESG reporting share one problem: they run on third-party estimates and averages instead of granular, current primary data. Fixing this needs an interoperable, secure, cross-industry data-exchange standard — a Data Commons — built on three values adapted from Elinor Ostrom’s commons design principles: Reciprocity, Security, Openness. See Data Commons for the values themselves.
It illustrates the concept with three use cases, each treated as its own wiki concept:
- Pathfinder Network — Scope 3 carbon data exchange
- Digital Product Passport — EU battery passport & Ecodesign Directive angle
- ESG reporting in the financial sector — EBA disclosure rules, SME data gap
It closes with a three-step call to action for businesses (map your value chain’s information asymmetries → borrow PACT’s collaborative-development playbook → run pilots that build new collaborative working modes) and a note that broad adoption will need public policy/funding support.
Discussion note (ingest conversation with Martin Pompéry, 2026-08-05)
Martin pushed back on treating Ostrom’s design-principles as mere background theory under Data Commons: ⟨per Martin Pompéry⟩ they are what SINE’s standardization work is a first derivation of, and the frame SINE itself uses to govern what it produces — closer to a constitutional layer than a citation. Captured on its own page: Ostrom’s Commons Design Principles & SINE’s governance approach.
Gap since closed
The primary source for Ostrom’s own design principles — Governing the Commons (1990) — has since been ingested in full:
Governing the Commons (Ostrom, 1990).
Ostrom’s Commons Design Principles & SINE’s governance approach
is now written from her original text, not from how this whitepaper
paraphrases her.