Digital Product Passport Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the key terms behind the EU Digital Product Passport, the ESPR, and the sustainability rules around them.

AGEC law (France): France's anti-waste and circular-economy law (loi AGEC) that already imposes environmental-information and traceability obligations on products sold in France, ahead of and alongside the EU Digital Product Passport.; Related reading:France textile compliance
Battery Passport: A Digital Product Passport specifically for batteries, mandatory from 18 February 2027 under the EU Battery Regulation for EV batteries, industrial batteries over 2 kWh, and light-means-of-transport batteries.; Related reading:EU Battery Passport guide
CE marking: A manufacturer's declaration that a product meets EU health, safety, and environmental requirements; the ESPR's information and ecodesign requirements sit alongside existing conformity obligations.
Circular economy: An economic model that keeps materials and products in use for as long as possible through reuse, repair, and recycling; the Digital Product Passport is a key tool for enabling it.
CIRPASS: An EU-funded project that developed the cross-sector concept and data model for the Digital Product Passport, shaping how DPP requirements are defined across product groups.
Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence: EU rules requiring larger companies to identify and address human-rights and environmental harms in their value chains — distinct from, but complementary to, the transparency the Digital Product Passport provides.
Coût environnemental (France): France's official environmental-cost score for products (starting with textiles), which brands displaying environmental claims to French consumers must show — a national requirement that overlaps with EU DPP data.
Data carrier: The physical link between a product and its Digital Product Passport — most commonly a QR code, but also a barcode or NFC tag — that a person scans to open the passport.; Related reading:Product passport QR codes & GS1 Digital Link
Delegated act: A piece of secondary EU legislation that fills in the detailed, product-specific rules under a framework regulation; under the ESPR, each product group's exact Digital Product Passport requirements are set by its own delegated act.; This is why DPP obligations arrive group by group rather than all at once — textiles, for example, are governed by a forthcoming textile delegated act.
Destruction ban: An ESPR prohibition on destroying certain categories of unsold consumer products — starting with textiles and footwear for larger companies — intended to curb waste in the fashion industry.; Related reading:ESPR destruction ban on unsold fashion
Digital Product Passport(DPP): A structured set of data about a product's identity, materials, environmental footprint, and circularity, accessed through a data carrier such as a QR code and required under the EU's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR).; The DPP makes product information available to consumers, businesses, and authorities across the supply chain, with the goal of supporting repair, reuse, recycling, and regulatory checks.; Related reading:What is a Digital Product Passport?How to create a Digital Product Passport
Ecodesign: Designing a product to minimise its environmental impact across its whole life cycle — from materials and durability to repairability and recyclability — which the ESPR turns into a legal requirement for most product groups.
Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation(ESPR): The EU regulation (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781), in force since 18 July 2024, that sets sustainability and information requirements for products sold in the EU and establishes the Digital Product Passport.; The ESPR is a framework regulation: it sets the overall rules, while the detailed requirements for each product group are filled in later by product-specific delegated acts.; Related reading:ESPR timeline: what brands need to know
Economic operator: Any business in a product’s supply chain with legal obligations under the ESPR — including manufacturers, importers, and distributors — one of which is responsible for creating and maintaining the Digital Product Passport.; Related reading:Who needs a Digital Product Passport?
ESPR Working Plan: The European Commission's published schedule (first adopted in April 2025) listing which product groups — such as textiles, furniture, and iron and steel — will be regulated first under the ESPR.; Related reading:DPP timeline 2026–2030: every deadline
EU Battery Regulation: Regulation (EU) 2023/1542, which sets sustainability, labelling, and due-diligence rules for batteries in the EU and introduces the Battery Passport ahead of the broader ESPR roll-out.
EU DPP Registry: A central EU system, established under the ESPR, where the identifiers of products placed on the market are recorded so authorities and customs can verify that a Digital Product Passport exists.
Extended Producer Responsibility(EPR): A policy approach that makes producers financially and operationally responsible for their products at end of life — including collection and recycling — increasingly tied to DPP data such as material composition.; Related reading:EU textile EPR & the Waste Framework Directive
Global Trade Item Number(GTIN): The standard GS1 product identification number — the number behind a retail barcode — used to uniquely identify a product, and often the basis of a Digital Product Passport's unique identifier.
Green claims rules: EU rules — the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive and the proposed Green Claims Directive — that restrict unsubstantiated environmental marketing claims, complementing the DPP by curbing greenwashing.; Related reading:EU green claims ban (ECGT)
GS1 Digital Link: A web-enabled standard that turns a product's barcode identifier into a URL, letting a single QR code point to a Digital Product Passport and other online resources; it is the de facto data-carrier standard for DPPs.; Related reading:Product passport QR codes & GS1 Digital Link
Life Cycle Assessment(LCA): A standardised method for quantifying a product's environmental impacts across its entire life — raw materials, manufacturing, use, and disposal — that underpins many DPP environmental metrics.
Product Carbon Footprint: The total greenhouse-gas emissions associated with a product across its life cycle, expressed in CO₂-equivalent, and a frequent Digital Product Passport data field.
Product Environmental Footprint(PEF): The European Commission's standardised method for measuring and communicating the environmental performance of products, used as a reference for several DPP environmental indicators.
Qualified Electronic Seal (eIDAS): An EU trust-services framework (eIDAS) and the qualified electronic seal it defines, used to cryptographically prove the origin and integrity of digital records — relevant to how Digital Product Passport data is deposited and trusted.
Recyclability: A measure of how easily a product's materials can be recovered and reprocessed at end of life; recyclability information is a common Digital Product Passport data point.
Repairability: How easily a product can be repaired — covering spare-part availability, ease of disassembly, and repair instructions — often expressed as a score and increasingly required in product information.
Substances of Concern(SoC): Hazardous substances present in a product that the ESPR requires to be disclosed in the Digital Product Passport, so they can be tracked, managed, and safely handled at end of life.; Related reading:DPP data requirements: what to collect
Substances of Very High Concern(SVHC): Chemicals identified under the EU's REACH regulation as posing serious risks to health or the environment; their presence above set thresholds must be reported, including in many Digital Product Passports.
Textile delegated act: The ESPR delegated act that will set Digital Product Passport requirements for textiles and apparel — one of the first priority product groups, with the act expected around 2027 and application following thereafter.; Related reading:Digital Product Passport for fashion brands
Unique Product Identifier: The code that uniquely identifies an individual item, batch, or model in a Digital Product Passport, so each product can be reliably matched to its data.