Loading…
Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 — the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation — lays down the framework that makes Digital Product Passports a legal requirement on the EU market, sector by sector.
ESPR's objectives are to reduce the negative life-cycle impacts of products and improve the functioning of the internal market. It fosters sustainable production, promotes supply and demand for sustainable products, and ensures a level playing field for products sold on the internal market. The regulation lays down a framework for setting ecodesign performance and information requirements based on product sustainability and circularity — and it creates the Digital Product Passport as the tool for managing those information requirements. ESPR also prohibits the destruction of unsold consumer products.
The regulation is designed to be consistent with existing Union policies — among them the European Green Deal, the Circular Economy Action Plan, the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, Green Claims and the Market Surveillance Regulation. Product groups, the exact data scope and availability periods are defined step by step through delegated acts, which is why obligations arrive sector by sector.
ESPR defines technical requirements that apply to all product groups. The DPP complements — it does not replace — non-digital forms of product information such as manuals or labels.
Product data must remain accessible to consumers and authorities for at least ten years — even in the event of manufacturer insolvency or server failure. This is why the law requires an independent third-party backup provider, regardless of who hosts the primary data.
ESPR proposes measures to help SMEs mitigate the risks and costs of DPP implementation. DPP-as-a-Service operators are expected to offer low-cost data storage and access facilities — and under Article 10 they are not allowed to sell, re-use or process passport data beyond what is necessary.