Imagine buying a new electric car, a smartphone, or even a simple cosmetic product and with a quick scan, you could see where its raw materials came from, how much carbon was emitted in its production, whether it was made under safe conditions, and how it can be recycled at the end of its life.
This isn’t science fiction. It’s the idea behind the Digital Product Passport (DPP) a concept born out of the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan. By 2027, DPPs will become a legal requirement in Europe (EU mandates digital product passports to boost sustainability, circularity, and compliance), starting with batteries, and will later extend to textiles, electronics, and chemicals etc.
In simple terms, a DPP is like a digital identity card for every product, giving it a transparent and traceable story.
What are the Current challenges in Digital Product Passport (DPP)
Interoperability & “what’s in the passport” exactly: The common DPP schema is still being finalized; misalignment across solutions is a top risk. (CIRPASS + IDS papers).
Data confidentiality & IP: Suppliers fear exposing sensitive BOM/process data; need role-based access, aggregation, or privacy-preserving approaches. (CEPS battery-passport analysis; peer-reviewed work).
Data quality & verification burden: Collecting reliable primary data (esp. Scope 3, recycled content) across fragmented chains is hard; GBA is testing indicator/assurance methods.
Cost/complexity for SMEs & retrofitting legacy IT: Integrations with ERP/PLM/MES and item-level serialization/tagging drive most of the lift. (Industry roundups & academic overviews).
Moving target regulation: Product-specific delegated acts are still rolling out; ESPR workplan clarifies priorities but details evolve.
Who is Working on Digital Product Passports (DPP)?
Digital Product Passport (DPP) development is being advanced by a mix of cross-industry alliances, sector-focused platforms, technology firms, and research bodies. Below is a consolidated overview of who is doing what in this space.
1. Industry-Led Consortia and Data-Space Initiatives
GAIA-X & International Data Spaces Association (IDSA): Building the federated, sovereign data-sharing infrastructure many DPP pilots rely on, ensuring interoperability and compliance with EU data-strategy goals.
Catena-X (automotive): Extends GAIA-X standards to vehicle supply chains, creating a common data layer to host battery and component passports.
Global Battery Alliance (GBA): Coordinates an industry-wide battery passport blueprint, aligning mining, cell-manufacturing and recycling stakeholders.
KEEP Initiative & Concular: KEEP targets electronics by assigning QR- or barcode-based passports, while Concular creates “material passports” for construction projects to track building components for reuse.
Sector-Specific Platforms Delivering Operational DPPs R-Cycle (plastics): Provides a GS1-based passport that links each plastic product to lifecycle data via EPCIS events; trials involved machinery maker Erema, waste firm LAVU and Johannes Kepler University Linz.
Digital Battery Passport Supervision Module: Patent-backed system adding AI-driven performance analytics and blockchain fraud detection to battery passports, enabling QR-code retrieval for different user levels (OEMs, recyclers, consumers).
Green Product Passport via Industrial Internet: A dual-patent concept that issues verified passports for “green” products using third-party testing data and hierarchical Industrial-Internet identifiers, addressing forgery risks and access rights management.
Technology Providers and Start-ups Supplying Enabling Solutions
CONTACT Software: Implements Asset Administration Shell (AAS)-based digital twins for several German BMBF/BMWK projects, delivering standardized DPP data exchange inside and outside factory walls.
cheqd.io + Hyperledger Fabric demo: Shows a multi-blockchain stack where Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) on cheqd ensure identity, while Fabric stores the actual passport records, validated in a university-led prototype.
Start-up ecosystem: Entities like Concular (construction) and KEEP (electronics) commercialize lightweight QR/UID passport services targeted at specific materials or appliance niches
2. Academic and Research Institutions Driving Concepts & Pilots
Technical University of Cluj-Napoca: Authored and tested the DID + Hyperledger Fabric DPP architecture, demonstrating CRUD scalability and modularity.
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland & Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI, Germany): Contribute to emerging EU standards and reference architectures for circular-economy passports.
Nonwovens Industry Study Group: Proposed a GAIA-X–compatible data ecosystem for fabric products, highlighting governance and interoperability gaps still to be validated at scale.
In summary, Digital Product Passport development is a collaborative landscape: large European data-space alliances set the rules, sector platforms like R-Cycle and Catena-X operationalize them, tech vendors supply the tooling, and patents reveal the next wave of scalable, automated, and secure DPP architectures.
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What problems DPPs actually solve?
Regulatory compliance & market access: Under the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR, in force since 18 Jul 2024) DPPs become the default transparency mechanism across product groups. Batteries are first: a “battery passport” is mandatory from 18 Feb 2027 under Regulation (EU) 2023/1542.
Traceability & recall/risk: End-to-end event history (manufacture – service – end-of-life) improves recalls, warranty, and due-diligence. GS1 EPCIS/Digital Link are the leading open standards many solutions build on.
Repair, reuse, and resale: Make repair instructions, parts, and provenance scannable; enable authenticated resale listings (e.g., Coach’s “instant resale” via NFC/QR digital IDs).
Recycling & circularity: Composition and hazard data help sort and recover materials; automotive and battery pilots show how recyclers can access what they need without over-disclosing IP.
ESG data + carbon/critical-minerals assurances: GBA’s battery passport work provides indicators, verification rules, and pilots so buyers can compare like-for-like.
Digital Product Passport (DPP) Industry Use case?
Batteries (EV/industrial): QR-linked passport with model + unit-level data (materials, recycled content, performance, safety). Volvo already rolled out a version for EX90 packs with Circulor.
Automotive (beyond batteries): Catena-X publishes DPP standards and apps for parts/materials; early focus on circularity and end-of-life.
Textiles/fashion: Pilots and playbooks (TrusTrace, EON) for product IDs that carry origin, materials, care/repair, and resale data as DPP rules phase in under ESPR 2025–2030 workplan.
“Clothes and shoes are about to get a digital update, at least in Europe”
Electronics & other categories: ESPR’s 2025–2030 plan prioritizes additional groups; the Commission is actively consulting on DPP service-provider rules.
Who is Filing Patents in Digital Product Passport (DPP)?
| Patent Number | Company / Institution | Problem | Patented Innovative Solution | Impact of the Patents |
| EP4564255A1 | Bull Sas | Unverified ESG/CO2 data | A distribution module for managing digital battery passports | Provides verifiable ESG/CO₂ indicators for reporting and procurement. Supports EU ESPR/battery‑passport compliance. Improves end‑of‑life processing and recovery. |
| EP4482081A1 | Basf Se | Unverified ESG/CO2 data | Environmental attributes for pharmaceutical excipients | Provides verifiable ESG/CO₂ indicators for reporting and procurement. Supports EU ESPR/battery‑passport compliance. Improves end‑of‑life processing and recovery. |
| EP4564256A1 | Bull Sas | Weak item identification / serialization | A supervision module for managing digital battery passports | Ensures unique item identity and physical‑digital linkage. Supports EU ESPR/battery‑passport compliance. Enhances repairability and after‑sales UX. Improves end‑of‑life processing and recovery. |
| EP4480320A1 | Basf Se | Unverified ESG/CO2 data | Environmental attributes for animal feed, human food and dietary supplement | Provides verifiable ESG/CO₂ indicators for reporting and procurement. Supports EU ESPR/battery‑passport compliance. Improves end‑of‑life processing and recovery. |
| EP4482082A1 | Basf Se | Limited end‑of‑life & recycling information | Environmental attributes for active pharmaceutical ingredients and/or intermediates thereof | Boosts recycling efficiency and circular outcomes. Supports EU ESPR/battery‑passport compliance. Improves end‑of‑life processing and recovery. |
| US20250069164A1 | Basf Se | Lack of product traceability & provenance | Environmental attributes for chemical compounds comprising a carbonyl group | Improves traceability and auditability across the product lifecycle. Improves end‑of‑life processing and recovery. |
| CN116152032A | China Academy Of Information And Communications Technology | Lack of product traceability & provenance | Green product digital passport generation method and device based on industrial internet | Improves traceability and auditability across the product lifecycle. Enhances repairability and after‑sales UX. |
Curious About How the Latest Patents Are Tackling Digital Product Passport Challenges? Get your hands on a complete list of these innovative patents, the problems they target, and the solutions they offer.
The Future Path of Digital Product Passport (DPP)
Digital Product Passports are on track to become the default “source of truth” for products starting with EU-regulated categories like batteries and then expanding to textiles, electronics, and beyond shifting DPP from a compliance checkbox to an operating layer that powers circular business models.
Over the next few years, expect convergence on open identifiers and event standards, verifiable credentials for trust, and privacy-preserving data sharing so suppliers can prove facts without exposing IP. DPPs will plug directly into ERP/PLM/MES, QR/NFC/RFID tags, recyclers, repair networks, and resale marketplaces; IoT signals and AI will increasingly pre-fill and validate claims (e.g., recycled content, carbon figures) and flag anomalies. Financial services will start pricing risk and value (warranties, insurance, residuals) off authenticated product histories.
The biggest hurdles interoperability, data quality, and SME onboarding cost will define winners: platforms that are open-standard, low-friction, and audit-ready. Net-net, DPPs evolve into the shared language of product truth from design to end-of-life, enabling trusted, data-driven decisions across the entire value chain.
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