Digital Product Passports for Circular Supply Chains Abstract
The Digital Product Passport( DPP), introduced under the European Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation( ESPR), is expected to become a core digital infrastructure enabling circular supply chains, transparent product lifecycle management, and regulatory compliance across European industries. However, deploying DPPs at scale raises critical questions regarding interoperability, governance, and the risk of vendor lock-in in emerging digital supply chain ecosystems.
This paper presents insights from ongoing Digital Product Passport pilot implementations in the battery and textile sectors, two priority product groups under the European sustainable product policy framework. These pilots explore the practical challenges of implementing interoperable product data models, integrating product and material lifecycle information— from raw-material extraction through manufacturing, use, repair, and end-of-life— across multi-tier supply chains, and aligning emerging DPP requirements with the existing digital infrastructure used by manufacturers, recyclers, and supply chain partners. Supplementary observations are drawn from the Horizon Europe BASE project( Battery Passport for Resilient Supply Chain and Implementation of Circular Economy, Grant Agreement No. 101157200), which is validating a large-scale Digital Battery Passport ecosystem across automotive, marine, stationary storage, and battery manufacturing value chains; its pilot findings are discussed in Section 2.1.
These pilots surface critical barriers: fragmented data standards, inconsistent semantic models, and difficulties ensuring secure data sharing while preserving industrial confidentiality.
The paper further examines how European DPP initiatives can benefit from alignment with globally recognized frameworks such as UN / CEFACT digital trade standards and open industry specifications developed by the Object Management Group( OMG). By leveraging shared ontologies, standardized APIs, and decentralized data architectures, DPP systems can support scalable product traceability, automate regulatory compliance, and integrate with emerging digital supply chain capabilities such as control towers, digital twins, and AI-driven analytics.
Based on pilot outcomes, the paper proposes an architectural and governance approach for implementing Digital Product Passports that prioritizes open standards, cross-sector interoperability, and avoidance of proprietary vendor lock-in. Such an approach is essential for enabling inclusive participation across supply chains, reducing implementation costs for SMEs, and ensuring that the European Digital Product Passport becomes a trusted data infrastructure supporting circular economy objectives and resilient global supply networks.
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