Further Reading and Resources

Further Reading and Resources

• European Union
• European Commission. Digital Product Passport Registry — official information on the European DPP architecture, governance, and implementation.
• European Commission. Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) — the legal framework introducing Digital Product Passports for priority product groups.
• European Commission. Circular Economy Action Plan — the EU strategy supporting sustainable products, resource efficiency, and circular business models.
• Reports and Guidance
• VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (2025). Implementing the Digital Product Passport: A Guidebook for Businesses — a practical guide covering DPP maturity levels, business opportunities, stakeholder collaboration, and roadmap development.
• CEN-CENELEC and GS1 Europe guidance on interoperability, product identification, and data standards for Digital Product Passports.
• Suggested Academic Reading
• Bocken, N. M. P., de Pauw, I., Bakker, C., & van der Grinten, B. (2016). Product design and business model strategies for a circular economy.
• Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Completing the Picture: How the Circular Economy Tackles Climate Change.

• Digital Product Passport — beyond compliance (selected readings)
• European Parliament, EPRS/STOA (2024). Digital product passport for the textile sector — foresight study on potential, stakeholders and deployment scenarios. Brussels: European Union.
• Adisorn, T., Tholen, L. & Götz, T. (2021). Towards a digital product passport fit for contributing to a circular economy. Energies, 14(8), 2289.
• Jansen, M., Gerstenberger, B., Bitter-Krahe, J., Berg, H., Sebestyén, J. & Schneider, J. (2022). Current approaches to the digital product passport for a circular economy. Wuppertal Institute.
• King, M. R. N., Timms, P. D. & Mountney, S. (2023). A proposed universal definition of a Digital Product Passport Ecosystem. Journal of Cleaner Production, 384, 135538.
• Ducuing, C. & Reich, R. H. (2023). Data governance: digital product passports as a case study. Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, 24(1), 3–23.
• Langley, D. J., Rosca, E., Angelopoulos, M., Kamminga, O. & Hooijer, C. (2023). Orchestrating a smart circular economy: guiding principles for digital product passports. Journal of Business Research, 169, 114259.
• Van Capelleveen, G., Vegter, D., Olthaar, M. & van Hillegersberg, J. (2023). The anatomy of a passport for the circular economy: a conceptual definition, vision and structured literature review. Resources, Conservation & Recycling Advances, 17, 200131.

• Industry case — Trace4Value: a Digital Product Passport pilot on real garments.
• Trace4Value is a Nordic research and pilot project that puts Digital Product Passports on actual fashion products. In 2024, the project — led by TrusTrace together with GS1 Sweden — began tagging selected Kappahl and Marimekko garments in production. Each pilot product carries an ID carrier (a GS1 Digital Link) that resolves to prioritised supply-chain and transparency data: fibre composition, production sites and suppliers, care and repair information, and the recycling-relevant details behind the passport.
• The pilot matters for SMEs for three reasons. First, it shows that a DPP does not require a bespoke IT platform: existing GS1 standards and a traceability data backbone are enough to start. Second, it was built by sharing data that already existed inside the brands’ supply chains — the work was data governance, not data creation. Third, it connects consumer communication (scanning a garment) to back-end compliance data, which is exactly the double function the ESPR asks of a passport.
• At EU scale, the CIRPASS-2 project (2024–2027, 49 partners) is testing the same question across 13 lighthouse pilots in textiles, electronics, tyres and construction. Its textile pilots — for example the circular-textile pilot run by circular.fashion with atma.io, and the apparel pilot led by EON — validate how DPP data and circular services interoperate and feed the Commission’s rule-making. Between the Trace4Value pilot and CIRPASS-2, the industry is moving from “what is a DPP?” to “what must my company put in place?” — the question this module’s Field Activity addresses.
• Field Activity — one garment, one passport readiness map.
• Take one real product your organisation makes or sells (or, if you are a learner without a product line, one garment you own) and map what its Digital Product Passport would require today.
• Step 1 — Choose the product and its sales market (EU / non-EU).
• Step 2 — List the six essential data areas of a textile DPP: product and producer identification; materials and composition (including recycled content); substances of concern; manufacturing and processing information; care, repair and maintenance; and end-of-life / recyclability information.
• Step 3 — For each data area, record where the data lives today (internal system, supplier, certificate, laboratory test) and who owns it.
• Step 4 — Mark each area as available, partially available, or missing, and note the verification level it would need (self-declaration, supplier declaration, or third-party verification).
• Step 5 — Choose the data carrier you would start with (QR code with GS1 Digital Link, or RFID) and state why, using the trade-offs from Chapter 5.
• Step 6 — Identify the three actions that would close your biggest data gap, with an owner and a rough timeline.

Deliverable: a one-page DPP readiness map (table or diagram) covering Steps 1–6, plus a short paragraph explaining the business opportunity you would unlock first (Chapter 6).

Sources: TrusTrace — Trace4Value project announcement (trustrace.com/newsroom); GS1 Sweden — Digital product passport pilot within textiles (gs1.se); Kappahl — pilot launch press release (kappahl.com, 2024); CIRPASS-2 (cirpass2.eu).

• Final Knowledge Quiz — 15 questions, 2 points each (30/100 of the module grade). Tests integrated understanding across all six chapters.
• Q1. What is a Digital Product Passport, in one sentence?
• An EU loyalty programme that rewards consumers for recycling garments
• A structured digital dataset attached to a product that follows it through its lifecycle and gives role-based access to authorised actors
• A new mandatory physical label sewn into every garment sold in Europe
• A certificate issued by a third party confirming a product is sustainable
• ✓ Correct answer: B
• Why: A DPP is a data carrier plus a data set: the digital record travels with the product and different actors see different parts of it.
• Q2. Which EU legal act introduces Digital Product Passports?
• The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (EU) 2024/1781
• The Empowering Consumers Directive
• The Waste Framework Directive
• The Textile Labelling Regulation
• ✓ Correct answer: A
• Why: ESPR is the framework law that establishes the DPP; textiles were among the first product groups selected for delegated acts.
• Q3. In the JRC three-tier data model, which three levels describe a product’s data?
• Public, private and restricted tiers
• Mandatory, optional and recommended tiers
• Local, national and global registry tiers
• Model, batch and item levels
• ✓ Correct answer: D
• Why: Model level covers traits constant across a production run, batch level covers facts that vary by run, and item level covers serialised identifiers.
• Q4. Which DPP data point is the only one proposed with a minimum performance threshold?
• Recycled content of the product
• Robustness score of the product
• Recyclability score of the product
• Carbon footprint of the product
• ✓ Correct answer: A
• Why: Recycled content is the outlier where disclosure becomes “you must hit a number”; thresholds will vary by product type.
• Q5. Where does the weakest point of most traceability chains sit?
• Inside the brand’s own ERP system
• At the hand-off between supply-chain actors
• At the point of sale in retail stores
• In the registry that stores passport data
• ✓ Correct answer: B
• Why: Data gaps concentrate between actors — different systems, languages and levels of trust — rather than inside any single company.
• Q6. What is the main advantage of GS1 Digital Link over a conventional barcode?
• It stores the full passport data set on the label itself
• It can only be read by authorised regulatory scanners
• It turns a barcode into a web address that resolves to product data
• It replaces the need for a product identifier
• ✓ Correct answer: C
• Why: Digital Link extends a GTIN to a resolvable web address, so one carrier serves logistics and consumer-facing DPP data.
• Q7. When is RFID preferable to a QR code as a DPP carrier?
• When the product must be scanned in bulk and at a distance
• When the label must cost less than one cent per unit
• When consumers must scan with any smartphone camera
• When the carrier must work without any database behind it
• ✓ Correct answer: A
• Why: RFID reads at a distance and in bulk with no line of sight — suited to logistics and stocktaking; QR codes win on cost and consumer reach.
• Q8. What role is proposed for the European DPP registry?
• Storing every passport in one central EU database
• Replacing manufacturers’ internal product systems
• Acting as a directory that helps authorised actors find where passport data is hosted
• Recording consumers’ purchasing histories from scans
• ✓ Correct answer: C
• Why: The registry is designed as a directory — product data stays with its owners while the registry enables discovery.
• Q9. According to the ESPR Working Plan 2025–2030, what is its function?
• It sets binding ecodesign thresholds for every textile category
• It names priority product groups for delegated acts
• It replaces the JRC preparatory study
• It creates the EU registry for DPP data
• ✓ Correct answer: B
• Why: The Working Plan (adopted April 2025) is the sequencing list; the binding numbers come per sector in each delegated act.
• Q10. For an SME, what is the recommended first step of DPP readiness?
• Buy RFID readers and label stock immediately
• Commission a full external rollout plan in one go
• Inventory the data categories and assign a clear owner to each
• Wait for the delegated act to be final before acting
• ✓ Correct answer: C
• Why: You cannot manage what you have not inventoried: the data inventory and ownership map come before tools.
• Q11. Why does supplier data collection usually take longer than expected?
• Suppliers generally refuse to share basic product data
• The data sits several tiers upstream, fragmented across suppliers’ systems and languages
• The EU registry queue delays every submission by months
• Labels and QR codes add unexpected production time
• ✓ Correct answer: B
• Why: Deep-tier data requires relationships, standard templates and time — budget months, not weeks.
• Q12. Which circular business opportunity is directly enabled by reliable DPP data?
• Product-as-a-service, repair services and certified resale
• Advertising space sold inside the passport
• Automatic reordering driven by passport scans
• Dynamic in-store pricing from RFID activity
• ✓ Correct answer: A
• Why: Verified lifecycle records let a product move between use, repair, resale and recycling without losing its history.
• Q13. Why does transparency build customer trust in a DPP?
• It removes the need for customer-service teams
• It replaces annual sustainability reporting with live dashboards
• It lets brands convert passport data into targeted advertising
• It gives customers evidence-based data that supports informed choices
• ✓ Correct answer: D
• Why: Evidence-based product data turns claims into verifiable facts — the basis of trust in circular markets.
• Q14. What does the Trace4Value pilot demonstrate for SMEs?
• A DPP requires a bespoke IT platform built from scratch
• Existing GS1 standards and a traceability backbone are enough to start, and the work is data governance rather than data creation
• DPPs are only feasible for brands with more than one million items a year
• Consumers will not scan passport codes on garments
• ✓ Correct answer: B
• Why: Kappahl and Marimekko piloted DPPs on real products using GS1 Digital Link and a traceability data backbone.
• Q15. How can a DPP support cultural and market change beyond compliance?
• By making repair, resale and product-as-a-service models practical and trustworthy
• By guaranteeing higher sales volumes as soon as a passport goes live
• By taking over the company’s ERP and inventory systems
• By replacing eco-labels and certifications across the EU
• ✓ Correct answer: A
• Why: Reliable item-level data is the infrastructure for circular business models — the strategic asset argument of Chapter 6.

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