Chapter 6 — full chapter
6.1.3 Design implications for SMEs
Choosing a circular model is a design decision, not only a commercial one. What the DPP adds is the requirement to decide, at design stage, which data the product will carry through each lifecycle step and who will be allowed to write to it. Three implications matter most for an SME:
- Design for a durable identity: the carrier (QR label or RFID tag — Chapter 5) and the product’s data record should survive the garment’s life, including washing, repair and resale.
- Decide data fields before production: retrofitting data to a finished garment is far more expensive than capturing it at source, where suppliers and factories already hold it (Chapter 3’s weakest-hand-off lesson).
- Keep the passport open, not proprietary: data should be readable by partners, repairers and resale platforms through shared standards, avoiding vendor lock-in (Chapter 5.4).
The result is a different reading of the passport: not a compliance document produced at the end of a process, but the data infrastructure of a chosen business model — which is why Chapters 1.3 and 6.5 describe DPPs as strategic assets.