DATA4CIRC Multi-Project Webinar on DPPs

Published Nov 2025 © DATA4CIRC

In our last blog, we explained the basics of what Digital Product Passports are. Now it’s time to dig a little deeper! On 21st October 2025, the DATA4CIRC project joined with the RecAL project to co-host a webinar on Insights into Digital Product Passports and EU Research, gathering over 280 participants from across Europe, as well as beyond. The webinar brought together experts from the DATA4CIRC, RecAL, CIRPASS-2, COMPASS, and R-evolve projects, plus from European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA). The full webinar programme can be viewed here.

Digital Product Passports (DPPs) – a key to Industrial Safety and Sustainability

The first keynote speech, delivered by Dimcho Dimov, from the HaDEA Advanced Materials Unit, explored the transformative nature of DPPs and their potential to act as guide through challenges posed by modern, intricate industrial systems. Emerging out of the in the 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan and embedded in the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR/ 2024R1781), DPPs enhance traceability and transparency, and promote circular material flows, aligning with the objectives of the European Green Deal and Circular Economy Action Plan. By improving product data quality, DPPs support the precautionary principle (Article 191 TFEU) through better evidence and monitoring of potential risks. Although their technical implementation, data governance, and certification rules for DPP service providers continue to be refined by European Commission consultations, Dimcho Dimov noted that the combination of EU market leverage and concerted efforts towards international standardisation (UNECE and ISO interoperability initiatives) gives the DPP strong potential for global diffusion. In the longer term, the European Commission expects DPPs to be integrated into the European Data Space, enabling automated compliance and circular-economy services.

Opportunities for DPPs under the ESPR

The second keynote speech, given by Dr Martin Führ, from the R-evolve project and Hochschule Darmstadt, framed DPPs as ‘enablers’, highlighting trust (i.e. that the data set is “accurate, complete, and up to date”) as a key condition. They related a simulation conducted as part of their project in which the behavioural impacts of incentives for ensuring data quality were investigated. Their project has asked which business models might profit (and which might not profit) from the DPP data set. The simulation moved from the normative, macro-legal level, employing fictitious delegated acts; explored meso-governance aspects; and finally turned to consider the micro-implementation level, dividing each into technical and content fields. This enabled them to identify unresolved questions in relation to the Governance Framework.

Expert Panel Discussion

Four experts, Wan Li (representing DATA4CIRC), Carolynn Bernier (CIRPASS-2), Teresa Oberhauser (COMPASS), and Panagiotis Symeonidis (RecAL), took turns to present their projects’ work and then discussed a series of questions:

How can we ensure interoperability and compatibility of Digital Product Passports among participating organisations within future circular networks? 

Wan Li: from my point of view to ensure the interoperability we need common data standards and shared ontologies. We also need common reference architectures that all the participants in the circular value network can adopt as well as the use of open APIs and alignment with existing EU frameworks. One example from the DATA4CIRC project is our development of a common data architecture for DPP platform which enables us to create DPPs automatically, using a common data model: the asset the administration shell, which is a well-established and well-implemented concept in Germany. If all the participants in the value network use such models, we can create DPPs which can be developed by individual organisations.

Carolynn Bernier: in addition to what was already said, I think the ongoing standardisation activities are completely fundamental to this interoperability. They may not be completely sufficient on their own, but they are fundamental. The implementation of the EU registry in the EU portal will be another step that will further support interoperability, because this will be an interoperability meeting point where the truth will really be tested: can you register your DPPs correctly? Can you export data in such a way that the common EU portal exports it in a common way? Can a market surveillance authority validate that a DPP is correct?

Another key aspect will be the European business wallet. This is being rolled out by the European Commission in parallel to the DPP and will be fundamental in bringing interoperability from the perspective of decentralised identification mechanisms for organisations.

Basically, there are many opportunities, as well as regulations and bodies working to ensure this interoperability. I suppose the key question that I have is essentially how do you ensure buy in and participation from the organisations involved? How do you get business and manufacturers on board?

Teresa Oberhauser: We have been working on this for some time already now – a total of nine years across different industries and for us, one of the most important things we found out in working with companies is that there’s not a lot of disagreement on the main components of digital product passports. What we see that is that a lot of companies and manufacturers would love to add some additional, optional data points to encourage more business opportunities. In most supply chains it’s the original equipment manufacturers that have a lot of power in establishing traceability in digital product passports and that most of them, when they start setting up the system, don’t just want to comply with regulation but also want to see what kind of additional data points they can I add to, for example, trace recycled material content to help them communicate the sustainability efforts their brand is making, or how they can use additional data points to track more insight into their upstream supply chain and identify bottlenecks, to identify where crucial upstream materials are coming from and reduce risks.

Martin Führ: I think the most important question is that of the behavioural issues. The technical issues can be

solved by standardisation and other means, as Caroline pointed out, but how can we ensure that suppliers do not only enter data once?  How can we ensure that the data is really accurate, complete and up to date?

The core question is how to keep updating the system and the data. And key in this is that companies do not have different spreadsheets for different customers, just one single ‘point of truth’ in the DPP data set and that’s why we also included the contextual obligations. It’s required for business – no data no market. I think we have a learning curve and a lot of companies are already starting; so, I totally agree with what Teresa said that there are a lot of companies that see additional benefits in the after-sales markets and see other business opportunities. In this respect the DPP offers a lot of benefits for companies offering high-quality, long-lasting products.

Panagiotis Symeonidis: I mentioned that we decided to use blockchain technology for the development of the DPP. So that’s a technological aspect that was important for us. It is not necessary, but if it is used in the right way, blockchain can provide a trust layer that can be very important. It is a perfect tool for logging critical events like a product’s creation or major transfer because it provides an undeniable audit trail without a single controller. Another important technology that can be used in the DPP is sovereign identity, which let companies and consumer control their digital credentials and decide what to share and with whom. The key is to choose the technology carefully to avoid adding complexity. We want to reduce the inherent complexity and build a trusted system between competitors by replacing fragile collateral agreements with robust, cryptographic verification.

Beyond technical and regulatory readiness, how do we communicate the purpose and benefits of Digital Product Passports to consumers and non-technical stakeholders so that they become active participants in the circular economy?

Carolynn Bernier: The consumers are the mysterious part of the DPPs: how they will react to them? Will they actually use the QR code? Experiments show that QR codes are not used very much voluntarily. So, whether the consumers will really be enabled by this tool… it may may take some time: it will be a learning curve for them too. One area it may make a swifter impact is in reselling – it could make it easier for them to resell a product if they can link the product that they’re putting on a second-hand market to the DPP. Without some such benefit to them, consumers are unlikely to prioritise the environmental performance of their products at the moment of purchase. So, I can see DPP adoption by downstream economic operators that want to make maintenance faster or re-sell: there’s a business case there. For consumers, it is less clear.

Martin Führ: Just one brief addition: the ESPR does not only consider consumers, but also customers (meaning professional buyers, companies, or authorities): that’s why we put the public procurement tender in our simulation game. I think the first move might come from procurement (either private or public).

What are the biggest research and innovation gaps that future Horizon Europe or successor programmes should address to accelerate DPP adoption?

Carolynn Bernier: For me, it’s getting the data from upstream. As Teresa mentioned in her presentation, one of the main gaps is common, standardised vocabularies. These vocabularies are necessary to ensure that the data is semantically interoperable. Another gap that could probably be easy to fill is AI-assisted vocabulary generation for ecosystems. Additionally, many upstream suppliers lack digitalisation capabilities; so, for them any tool that makes it easy for them to supply data in an interoperable way. Currently, big brands are asking for data, and all of them are requesting data in different formats, forcing small companies to put data in different formats on different platforms, which is a catastrophe. Tools that enable these companies to remain sovereign over their data – not having to publish it anywhere but making it usable by any actor or brand that needs it and comes to fetch it on their servers need to be developed and deployed at a low cost for companies that are really not digitally advanced.

Teresa Oberhauser: There are a lot of options on the market with different focuses: some focussed more on verification, some more on AI, some on blockchain. But I think it is all built on the same underlying ontology. The CIRPASS-2 project is trying to standardise a lot for other DPP solutions and projects. In that sense, that is one of the key things on the way. But that will have to be developed further, because DPP solutions that cater to customers look to data standards and look to ontologies to see how they can make sure everyone is speaking the same language. It is great that there is this space to really bring the different types of knowledge together and have a standard that goes beyond the ESPR legislation, which is vital but needs further implementation and support.

Wan Li: I have some brief points regarding the gaps between research and innovation. As Carolynn and Theresa have mentioned, the ontology and common vocabulary are exactly the point: if multiple vocabularies exist, describing the same concept, but using different words, one of the gaps is how to address this problem of semantic conflicts. Another point is: what if the same word is used to mean different things?

A final research gap is that, under the current ESPR there are only a number of mandatory points defined. For example: each product should have an identification link with the name of the product, but they don’t mention exactly what kind of data should be included in the DPP. This needs to be specified in standards or regulations so that companies or organisations have clear targets and know what data they should collect.

There will, obviously, be a very large um repository of DPPs in the future, even for a small company or organisation. There will be thousands or tens of thousands and one problem is how should you search the repository for the data you need? If it is for a specific product, it can have a unique identifier, such as a QR code. But within an organisation with many DPPs, query language will be needed to allow data-users to find exactly the DPPs they want.

Check out the next instalment of our blog to see what the exert panellists and keynote speakers had to say in response to questions from the webinar participants! 

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