How to Create a Digital Product Passport

A practical guide for textile brands. What the ESPR requires, what data you need, and how to go from spreadsheets and supplier emails to a compliant, hosted Digital Product Passport with a QR code.

What is a Digital Product Passport?

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a structured digital record that contains information about a product's composition, manufacturing, environmental impact, and end-of-life handling. It's mandated by the EU's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), adopted in 2024.

For textile products, the DPP must be accessible via a data carrier — typically a QR code on the product label — that links to a hosted digital page. The data must be structured (machine-readable) and include information about materials, substances of concern, manufacturer details, care instructions, and circularity.

The ESPR requires that DPP data be accessible to consumers, market surveillance authorities, and recyclers. It must persist for the expected lifetime of the product.

What data does a textile DPP contain?

The ESPR and draft textile delegated act specify 9 data categories. Here's what each one means and what you need to provide.

1

Product Identification

Product name, model number, GTIN (barcode number) if you have one, product type, country of origin, and product images. Most of this comes from your existing product catalogue.

Auto-filled from your store sync

2

Economic Operator

Who is responsible for the product on the EU market? Manufacturer name and address, plus EU authorised representative or importer details if you're based outside the EU.

Auto-filled from your organisation profile

3

Material Composition

Fibre breakdown with percentages — e.g. 95% organic cotton, 5% elastane. Whether fibres are recycled, natural, or synthetic. This is the most important section for textiles.

You know this — it's on your care label already

4

Manufacturing & Supply Chain

Production stages and their countries — spinning, weaving, dyeing, assembly. You don't need full Tier 5 visibility. Just the stages and countries you know.

You know your direct suppliers

5

Environmental Footprint

Carbon footprint, water usage, energy consumption. Optional fields — Passportly can calculate the French Eco-Score automatically from your material and manufacturing data.

Calculated automatically via Ecobalyse

6

Substances of Concern

Declaration of SVHC (Substances of Very High Concern) above 0.1% concentration. REACH compliance status. If you hold OEKO-TEX certification, this is largely covered.

Simple yes/no + certificate number

7

Circularity Information

Is the product recyclable? How should it be recycled? Expected lifetime in washes or years. Any take-back schemes. Repair information if applicable.

Straightforward — you know your product

8

Care Instructions

Washing, drying, ironing, bleaching, dry cleaning. Passportly auto-suggests care instructions based on your fibre composition using ISO 3758 standards.

Auto-suggested from your materials

9

Compliance & Certifications

GOTS, OEKO-TEX, Fair Trade, or other certifications. Certificate numbers, validity dates, issuing bodies. Passportly verifies OEKO-TEX and GOTS certificates automatically.

Enter certificate number — we verify it

You don't fill this in 200 times

Templates for product groups

A brand with 200 products might have 10-15 distinct product groups. All your organic cotton t-shirts share the same materials, manufacturing, and care data. Create a DPP for one product, save it as a template, and apply it across the group.

Bulk operations

Select multiple products, apply a template to all of them, then bulk-publish. Download all QR codes as a ZIP file. What sounds like months of work becomes an afternoon of setup plus a few minutes per new product.

When do you need a DPP?

October 2026

French Environmental Cost mandatory

Any brand selling textiles into France must provide an Eco-Score. Third parties can publish default scores for brands that haven't calculated their own.

2027-2028

EU Digital Product Passport for textiles

The ESPR textile delegated act is expected to require DPPs for textile products entering the EU market. QR code on every product linking to structured data.

August 2026

EU Registry implementing act

The technical specifications for the EU DPP Registry are expected. This will define how DPP data is submitted to the central EU system.

Technical output

JSON-LD document

Machine-readable structured data following the ESPR/CIRPASS-2 ontology. Served via content negotiation at your product's GS1 Digital Link URI.

Hosted DPP page

A branded, mobile-first product page with your logo and colours. Consumers see a storytelling page. Authorities access the full technical data.

GS1 Digital Link QR

A QR code encoding a GS1-compliant URI. Download as PNG or SVG for your garment labels. Scan to reach the DPP page.

Create your first Digital Product Passport

Start free with 3 products. The guided questionnaire takes about 30 minutes for your first product. Templates make subsequent products take minutes.