What is a DPP?

The Digital Product Passport serves as a central hub for accessing product and supply chain information, which is mandated by new EU policies such as the EU Battery Regulation and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products regulation. Both regulations emphasize the importance of the Digital Product Passport as a tool for accessing public and private data related to carbon intensity, materials origin, composition, as well as repair, recycling, and recovery practices. The Battery Passport is part of the information requirements of the new regulation, with the goal of enhancing the ecological and social sustainability of the supply chain and promoting product circularity. The EU Battery Regulation entered into force in August 2023 and the Digital Battery Passport will become compulsory from 18 February 2027.

The ESPR is a framework regulation that, through delegated acts, will eventually specify performance and information requirements for almost all categories of physical products sold in the EU. Similar to the Battery Regulation, the ESPR incorporates the DPP a key component of its information requirements. According to the European Commission, the DPP will provide information about thje environmental sustainability of products. It should help consumers and businesses make informed purchasing decisions, facilitate repairs and recycling, and improve transparency. Additionally, the product passport is expected also help public authorities in conducting more effective checks and controls.

What does a DPP look like?

The regulations do not specify any technical requirements for the DPP, except for the requirement that the information be easily accessible by scanning a data carrier source. The Battery Regulation goes a little further by stating in Article 77(3) that:

The information accessible by scanning a data carrier will include attributes such as durability, reparability, recycled content, and availability of spare parts of a product (). The Battery Regulation goes further by stating in Article 77(3) that:

The battery passport shall be accessible through the QR code referred to in Article13(6) which links to a unique identifier that the economic operator placing the battery on the market shall attribute to it.

Additionally, in recital 126, the regulation emphasizes that the battery passport should be flexible, dynamic, market-driven, and based on a decentralized data system managed by economic operators.

This paragraph is crucial as it confirms that there is no centralized data repository for DPP data. Instead, each economic operator uses their own DPP system, retaining data ownership at all times.

DPP Data Access Management

In response to the lack of technical requirements, several initiatives have proposed technical implementations. The Battery Pass consortium has put forward a comprehensive technical standards stack that includes data models, identity & access management, and policy management. The consortium's recommended technical stack suggests using the Gaia-X framework to manage data access. This involves creating common data spaces and utilizing self-sovereign identities, verifiable credentials, and access rights policies expressed in a standard, machine-readable format.

One significant implementation of Gaia-X principles is Catena-X, which is a data space and data exchange protocol designed for the automotive sector. Catena-X provides standards, open-source implementations, and a governance framework for data exchange along the supply chain, including the creation of a Digital Product Passport. It specifies a range of components like data space connectors, KYC services, Digital Twins, and associated data.

DPP Resolution

While both initiatives provide detailed explanations on how to handle data access for confidential information, such as for notified bodies and organizations with a legitimate interest (e.g., recyclers), they do not specify the exact resolution of the Digital Product Passports from the moment a user scans the data carrier to the representation of public data on a webpage and the discovery of access points to confidential information.

There are several possible implementations. One of them is the GS1 Digital Link standard, which embeds a GS1 GTIN into a URL. This URL resolves to a lookup document that provides access to different data endpoints. The same principle can be implemented using Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) as product identifiers and DID Documents as lookup documents. The modular nature of the DPP stack allows you to choose the best implementation for the product group and use case.