The Digital Product Passport (DPP) has been introduced for the first time in Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, known as ESPR, which establishes a framework for setting ecodesign requirements for sustainable products.
The DPP is a digital identity card for products, components and materials, which contains relevant information supporting the sustainability of products, promoting their circularity and strengthening their compliance with standards.
According to Regulation (EU) 2026/405 on detergents and surfactants, the Digital Product Passport (DPP) is mandatory for all detergents and surfactants intended for the end user before placing on the market. It applies to products in single packaging and to those sold by on-site charging stations.
What is the Product Digital Passport (DPP)?
The DPP is a specific set of digital data related to a product model. It is accessed electronically via a data carrier (such as a QR code) that must be physically present on the product label or packaging. This passport is designed to be interoperable with other EU digital passports, ensuring a consistent approach to product information across different regulations.
The primary goals of the DPP are:
- Compliance Verification: It serves as a digital declaration that the product meets all applicable regulatory requirements.
- Accessibility: It provides consumers, authorities, and other stakeholders with immediate and easy access to essential information, such as the full list of ingredients.
- Enhanced Surveillance: It allows market surveillance and customs authorities to perform automatic checks at EU borders, verifying the existence of a valid passport before products are released for free circulation.
- Traceability: It ensures that products can be tracked throughout the supply chain for a period of ten years.
What are the DPP duties to follow?
Each economic operator has specific duties regarding the DPP to ensure the system functions correctly:
- Manufacturers: They have the primary responsibility. They must create the DPP for each product model, ensure it is accurate and updated, and upload the unique product and operator identifiers into the central EU registry. By creating the passport, the manufacturer assumes full legal responsibility for the product’s compliance.
- Authorized Representatives: For manufacturers based outside the EU, the representative must verify that the DPP has been created and that the required information has been entered into the registry. They must also keep the DPP available for national authorities for ten years.
- Importers: Before placing a product on the market, importers must ensure that the manufacturer has completed the conformity assessment and created the digital passport. They are also required to keep a reference to the unique product identifier for ten years.
- Distributors: Their role is to verify, with “due care,” that the product is accompanied by the required data carrier (e.g., the QR code) so that the final user can access the passport information.
The digital product passport shall be created by the manufacturer prior to market placement of a detergent or surfactant intended for the end-user.
The manufacturer needs to:
The manufacturer needs to:
- Create the digital passport;
- Make sure the data carrier (e.g., QR code) is available on the label or packaging;
- Enter a reference to the passport in the Union Central Register.
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