As more brands are transitioning to Digital Product Passports (DPP), there are crucial steps that need to be taken to ensure that brands are compliant with regulations already in place and upcoming regulations. Ranging from data standardization to security protocols, let's take a look at a few strategies that can future-proof your business through your product information and lay the foundation for compliance with complex regulations.
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As more brands focus on technology, sustainability, and increased transparency, legislation is starting to follow suit.
The European Digital Product Passport (DPP) initiative comes under the European Green Deal, first approved in 2020, and aims to achieve sustainable growth so that Europe becomes the first climate-neutral continent by 2050. Though it originated in Europe, DPP regulation are expected to affect supply chains worldwide.
But what exactly does this mean, and how can you start to build the foundation of support for DPP compliance? Let’s take a look.
Digital product passports (DPP) aim to gather data on a product and its supply chain and share it across entire value chains so all actors, manufacturers, repairers, and consumers better understand the environmental impact of the materials and products they use.
Information like a unique identifier, material data, sustainability, and repair data will have to be shared, in addition to the basic but still mandatory product name, product model, manufacturing place and date, and warranty details.
The implementation of DPP in these value chains is designed to support the following:
Essentially, a DPP is a digital record containing comprehensive information and details about products through its lifecycle. Up to this point, DPPs have been mainly used in the fashion, automotive, and electronics industries; brands such as Coach, Moncler, Tod’s, Balenciaga, and Boss have already implemented DPPs to provide information about product materials and manufacturing, as well as authenticity.
The latest updates to DPP regulation now require companies to provide detailed data on the product’s repair history, reusability, resource efficiency, and details on any potentially hazardous substances. With this updated regulation, the EU is working towards ensuring maximum visibility, transparency, and durability for products.
DPPs have been monumental for brands and consumers heavily focusing on the sustainability aspect of their materials and products used as DPPs are able to offer increased insights and transparency around product origins and compositions.
The DPP project was unveiled by the EU on March 30, 2022, within a broader package designed to make sustainable products the norm in Europe. Access to DPP data is expected to be made mandatory by 2026.
Given that all products placed on the EU market will be affected, DPP is expected to impact value chains globally, despite it being a European initiative. If a fashion manufacturer headquartered in the US produces in Asia, but sells in even just one European country, it must provide a DPP for all its products.
As far as industries are concerned, battery industries will be the first to comply, with the following industries to quickly follow suit:
Other DPP requirements for specific industries will be rolled out over time. These will be based on targeted product categories that align with the EU Circular Economy Action Plan.
Navigating the waters of compliance can be a tricky one, especially when the exact expected format of DPP is still unknown. However, the more prepared you can be with product information, the faster your organization will adapt and comply.
This is exactly what Akeneo can bring to your organization: a scalable source of truth for your product information adapted to your business needs.
And technology is not the only component to ensure you are ready with your product data: an omnichannel product experience (PX) strategy is required to take that product information and ensure that it reaches the right audiences, at the right time, in the right place.
The benefit of uniting composable technology and a PX strategy is that not only are you creating a ready-to-use source of truth for all your products, but it also provides your team with the scalability needed to address any new requirements from a marketplace or legal initiative, or even a future evolution of something like DPP.
With Akeneo as your backbone, your team will be able to:
Product information is not only the key to a Digital Product Passport, but to complying with all ever-changing regulations, and Akeneo can assist in bringing a brand or organization a scalable source of product information. Coupled with an omnichannel product experience strategy, Akeneo can help ensure that the product information reaches the correct audience, at the right time, and in the right place.
To learn more about how to navigate the waters of Digital Product Passports, you can explore the DPP app yourself, or reach out to an Akeneo expert today.
Our Akeneo Experts are here to answer all the questions you might have about our products and help you to move forward on your DPP journey.
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