Digital Product Passport Initiatives

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) have launched a joint initiative to develop the Digital Product Passport (DPP), a standardized framework designed to record and share product lifecycle information, such as origin, material composition, environmental impacts, and compliance with sustainability standards, across industries and regions. The DPP aims to provide a decentralized trust architecture that allows data to remain with product owners while enabling publication and linkage through existing business systems, thereby avoiding dependencies on any single software provider. This initiative addresses critical barriers to sustainability reporting, including data standardization and interoperability, and seeks to combat greenwashing by ensuring the authenticity of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) information.

Building on UNECE’s prior work in traceability and transparency, particularly blockchain pilots in the garment and footwear sectors and its UN Transparency Protocol for harmonized sustainability data, the DPP project is coordinated under ISO/PWI 25534-1: Digital Product Passport Overview and Fundamental Principles. Following a kick-off meeting on 25 February and an Ad Hoc Meeting on 25 March, which gathered over 2,300 experts to refine project scope and priorities, the initiative will proceed with industry-specific symposia starting in April 2025. Draft standards and recommendations are scheduled for completion by the end of 2025, establishing a global interoperability framework to support regulatory compliance and market-driven sustainability objectives.

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