Digital product passports and data collection and processing

The European Union intends to introduce new electronic documents that will allow the history of product production to be traced. What are Digital Products Passports, and what do they mean for your company?

What is a Digital Product Passport?

The Digital Product Passport (DPP) is essential to the European Union’s ecodesign for sustainable products.

Digital Product Passports contain a range of information that allows the product to be identified through a unique code that various electronic devices can read.

Will CPP be online only?

No, critical product data will be available regardless of internet access. This will allow you to learn about the composition and origin of individual parts of the product at each stage of its life.

What information will be included in the Digital Product Passport?

The information in the passport will concern not only finished products but also their ingredients and intermediate elements. The introduction of the passport will cover both products manufactured in the European Union and those imported. The passport will contain information on sustainability, the circularity of materials and the possibility of their reuse, renewal and recycling.

Who are Digital Product Passports for?

According to the new EU action plan on the circular economy, Digital Product Passports will apply primarily to batteries, electronics, and textiles from 2026 onwards. This initiative is due to its high environmental impact and the potential for raw material circulation and recycling.

These regulations and packaging may also cover the construction industry.

Digital Product Passports – benefits

The Digital Product Passport will benefit consumers (allowing easy access to product information and verification of authenticity) and businesses that can provide reliable information about their products.

They will help consumers make informed purchasing decisions, make it easier to repair products (preventing them from being thrown away) and recycle, and increase transparency about environmental impact. This, in turn, will contribute to reducing waste.

Digital Product Passports will also help to detect greenwashing, i.e., misleading consumers about products’ compliance with environmental protection standards.

In addition to the benefits, passports will bring some challenges for companies, for example, when it comes to collecting and processing all the new data.

See also: Digital Product Passports: the end of the fast fashion era?

Digital Product Passports and data collection. CPP vs. PIM

In the context of CPP data, they are a significant challenge for today’s companies that care about sustainable development. Fortunately, some solutions can help you process data with Digital Product Passports – such as PIM (Product Information Management) systems.

• PIM can be used to process data from digital product passports. With a good system of this type, your company can manage product information from digital passports efficiently. How?
• A PIM system can integrate data from Digital Product Passports, allowing you to gather all relevant product information in one place – without chaos.
• Mapping data from CPP will enable consistent information processing and interpretation. Yes, even if they come from different sources.
• A PIM system can automatically update product data based on the information in digital passports, increasing your company’s credibility.
• Importantly, in greenwashing prevention, you can use PIM to check the correctness and completeness of data from Digital Product Passports.
• Digital product passports and data collection are one thing. Still, you can’t forget about their correct and lawful processing – a properly implemented PIM system, such as Akeneo PIM, will help with all this.