Digital Product Pass­port (DPP)

What is a digital product pass­port?

A DPP is a struc­tured set of product infor­ma­tion that is acces­sible elec­tron­i­cally through a data carrier on the product, its pack­aging or its docu­men­ta­tion. It covers the entire product life­cycle: raw mate­rial, produc­tion, use, repair and end of life, with detailed infor­ma­tion about the mate­rials used and the emis­sions caused along the way. Its purpose is trans­parency. Consumers can compare prod­ucts by sustain­ability, repair shops get the infor­ma­tion they need, recy­clers know which mate­rials they handle, and market surveil­lance author­i­ties can check compli­ance.

The DPP is part of the Euro­pean Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan. The Euro­pean Commis­sion sees product infor­ma­tion as the missing link for a circular economy: without reli­able data about mate­rials and repairability, prod­ucts cannot be kept in use longer or recy­cled prop­erly. The digital pass­port closes this gap, improves product trace­ability and makes the envi­ron­mental impact of each sustain­able product visible.

The legal frame­work: ESPR and other regu­la­tions

The Ecode­sign for Sustain­able Prod­ucts Regu­la­tion came into force in July 2024 and replaced the old Ecode­sign Direc­tive, which only covered energy-related prod­ucts. The ESPR applies to almost all phys­ical goods on the EU market, with excep­tions such as food, feed and medi­c­inal prod­ucts. It does not set require­ments directly. Instead, the Euro­pean Commis­sion adopts dele­gated acts for product cate­gories that define each require­ment and the content of the pass­port for that group.

Other EU regu­la­tions intro­duce pass­ports in parallel. The Battery Regu­la­tion requires a battery pass­port for elec­tric vehicle batteries, light means of trans­port batteries and indus­trial batteries above 2 kWh from 18 February 2027. The revised Construc­tion Prod­ucts Regu­la­tion also provides for a digital product pass­port for construc­tion prod­ucts. All of these build on the same idea: product data that is machine-read­able, inter­op­er­able and linked to a unique iden­ti­fier.

When will the digital product pass­port become manda­tory?

There is no single date on which the pass­port will be manda­tory for everyone. The DPP applies product group by product group, once the dele­gated act for that group enters into force and its tran­si­tion period has passed. The time­line so far:

Compa­nies should not wait for the act covering their own prod­ucts. Suppliers will be asked for compo­nent data long before the end product needs a pass­port, and the data struc­tures take time to build.

Which prod­ucts need a digital product pass­port?

In the long run, most phys­ical prod­ucts sold in the EU will need DPPs. The first wave focuses on prod­ucts with a high envi­ron­mental impact and a large poten­tial for circu­larity. The textile industry is among the first product groups, together with inter­me­diate prod­ucts such as steel and aluminium, furni­ture, tyres and mattresses. Elec­tronics and energy-related prod­ucts follow. Indus­trial compo­nents matter even if they are not covered directly: a drive or a sensor becomes part of a machine, and the machine builder needs the compo­nent’s data for the pass­port of the end product.

What infor­ma­tion does a digital product pass­port contain?

The exact content is defined per product group, so the require­ments outlined in each dele­gated act matter. Typical infor­ma­tion includes:

• a unique product iden­ti­fier and the iden­tity of the manu­fac­turer or importer
• mate­rials and their origin, including recy­cled content and substances of concern
• the carbon foot­print and other indi­ca­tors of envi­ron­mental impact
• infor­ma­tion on repair, spare parts, disas­sembly and recy­cla­bility
• user manuals, safety infor­ma­tion and compli­ance docu­ments

Not everyone sees every­thing. The regu­la­tion allows different access rights, so that consumers see public infor­ma­tion while author­i­ties or recy­clers get detailed data. Confi­den­tial busi­ness infor­ma­tion stays protected.

Who is respon­sible for creating a digital product pass­port?

The economic oper­ator who places the product on the EU market is respon­sible for its DPP. That is usually the manu­fac­turer, or the importer for prod­ucts made outside the EU. The rules there­fore also apply to compa­nies in the US, Asia and else­where that sell into the EU. There is no compa­rable US federal require­ment, but exporters to Europe must comply. In prac­tice, the pass­port depends on data from the entire supply chain, so suppliers have to deliver struc­tured infor­ma­tion to their customers.

How the digital product pass­port works tech­ni­cally

The ESPR sets prin­ci­ples rather than one tech­nology. The data must be machine-read­able, struc­tured and based on open, inter­op­er­able stan­dards. Each product gets a unique iden­ti­fier. A data carrier, usually a QR code, links to the pass­port. The data is stored decen­trally by the economic oper­ator or a service provider, while the Commis­sion’s registry holds the iden­ti­fiers. Euro­pean stan­dard­iza­tion bodies are devel­oping the detailed stan­dards for iden­ti­fiers, data carriers, inter­faces and access rights.

This is where the Asset Admin­is­tra­tion Shell comes in for the imple­men­ta­tion of the DPP. The AAS already provides a stan­dard­ized digital twin for indus­trial prod­ucts, with submodels for the digital name­plate, tech­nical data, docu­men­ta­tion and carbon foot­print. A DPP built on the AAS reuses data that exists anyway instead of creating a sepa­rate system, and keeps trace­ability across the product life cycle.

How OI4 members imple­ment the digital product pass­port

OI4 members have tested the AAS-based approach in prac­tice. In a proof of concept, a user config­ures a bicycle in a demon­strator. The config­u­ra­tion creates a type AAS of the bicycle from the AAS of its handlebar, saddle and wheel. During assembly, instance shells are gener­ated and real process data such as torque values is written back. At delivery, the DPP is created auto­mat­i­cally from the synchro­nized data, including a product carbon foot­print calcu­lated from the compo­nent foot­prints. The shells use the submodels Name­plate, Carbon Foot­print, Tech­nical Data and Handover Docu­men­ta­tion.

A second project, From Regu­la­tion to Value, used the OI4 Next Bike to define a prac­tical DPP frame­work, address life­cycle ques­tions such as change manage­ment and design infra­struc­ture concepts that keep data owner­ship and sover­eignty with the compa­nies. Members of the Compo­nent Supplier work­group also offer the DPP as a service on Twin­sphere, an AAS plat­form aligned with IDTA meta­models and ECLASS.

The lesson from both projects: the pass­port is easiest to produce when product data is struc­tured from the start. Compa­nies that already provide digital twins of their compo­nents have most of the DPP require­ments covered.

Bene­fits beyond compli­ance

The DPP creates work, but also value. Struc­tured product infor­ma­tion reduces manual effort in sales and service, improves trace­ability in the supply chain and supports new busi­ness models such as repair, refur­bish­ment and take-back. Supply chain trans­parency also helps with other regu­la­tions, for example carbon reporting. Compa­nies that treat the DPP as part of their product data strategy, rather than as a sepa­rate compli­ance project, get the most out of it.

What are the concerns about digital product pass­ports?

The main concerns are the effort for small and medium-sized compa­nies, the protec­tion of confi­den­tial data, the quality of supplier data and the risk of incom­pat­ible solu­tions. Inter­op­er­ability addresses the last point: if every plat­form uses its own format, suppliers have to deliver the same data in many versions. Open stan­dards such as the AAS and the work of the Euro­pean stan­dard­iza­tion bodies aim to prevent this.

Frequently asked ques­tions