The EU Digital Product Passport is coming, are you ready?

Written by Lotta Multimäki | May 2, 2024 5:47:30 AM

In the near future, products sold within the EU will be required to have a Digital Product Passport (DPP). This entails ensuring that the product's sustainability-related information is in order. For example, information related to calculating the carbon footprint of products must be presented transparently. Preparing for the change should start immediately.

The objective of the European Union and all countries that have ratified the Paris Agreement is to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. As part of this goal, the EU has launched the Digital Product Passport project, which is expected to become mandatory by 2026-2027.

Regardless of their country of origin, product manufacturers are required to provide the information required by the product passport to consumers and other stakeholders for the entire lifecycle of the product if it is sold within the EU. It will be up to retailers to consider how the product passport can be utilized to support consumers' purchasing decisions and how to make the product passport available both in brick-and-mortar stores and online.

In the first phase, DPP's are required from manufacturers in the following industries:

Batteries
Chemicals
Construction
Electronics
Plastics
Textiles
Vehicles

The Digital Product Passport will become mandatory for over 30 product categories with the largest environmental impacts. Therefore, the regulation will apply to almost all products sold in the EU. Only food, feed, and medicinal products are excluded from the regulation.

What information must the Digital Product Passport include?

The DPP is industry-specific, and the information required for it partly depends on the industry. The definition work for the product passport is still ongoing in the EU, but it is likely that the product passport will include the following types of information:

Product information
Basic information about the product, such as brand, model, batch number, date of manufacture, and warranty information.
Material information
The origin of raw materials and components, as well as information about suppliers, manufacturers, and partners involved throughout the entire production chain.
Ownership information
Information about the current and previous owners of the product and its trading/transaction history.
Repair information
Information on how the product can be repaired, as well as when, why, and how previous repairs have been carried out.
Sustainability information
Information about the carbon footprint of the product, taking into account the entire manufacturing process, and instructions for disposing of the product once its lifecycle has reached its endpoint.

For example, the Swedish clothing brand Asket provides detailed sustainability information about their products on their online store's product pages.

The benefits of Digital Product Passports for consumers include:

Increased transparency and easier purchasing decisions
Better chances for supporting responsible companies
Easier recycling

The benefits of Digital Product Passports for manufacturers include:

Increased consumer trust and improved brand image
Easier product information sharing and increased efficiency
Better product traceability and supply chain transparency

How to prepare for the Digital Product Passport?

Product manufacturers are facing a significant task to ensure that the information required for the Digital Product Passport is available for their products. Now is the time to start planning and experimenting with how and from where the information can be generated. It is also important to ensure that the existing systems allow for the storage and distribution of product passport information to consumers and other stakeholders.

The change and the need for development are significant, but they do not need to be tackled alone, as all other product manufacturers are in the same situation. Best practices are currently being developed by the GS1 organization specializing in product codes and information, along with numerous other companies involved in product data.

Manufacturers with a modern and flexible product information management system (PIM) are already in a better position to prepare for the change than those whose product information management is still in its early stages.