The European Union is accelerating the introduction of Digital Product Passports (DPPs) under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). These passports are designed to increase transparency, traceability, and sustainability across value chains. Yet despite their transformative potential, today’s DPP implementations remain limited in one fundamental way: they are too static, too centralized, and too disconnected from the real behavior of products and services over time.
Across industry and academia, evidence shows that to meet regulatory expectations and unlock circular economy value, DPPs must evolve into dynamic, service-aware systems. This means shifting from isolated, one-time records toward “living” Digital Product–Service System Passports (DPSSPs).
The Limitations of Today’s Product-Centric Passports
Several analyses highlight significant constraints in current DPP approaches:
- Most DPPs record information as a static snapshot.
- They rarely reflect all the system lifecycle. They typically cover, design and concept phases but lack of essential elements for “utilization”, “support”, and “Retirement” pahses )e.g. real maintenance, upgrades, or usage patterns)
- Many architectures are centralized, creating bottlenecks and single points of failure.
- The DPP Playbook stresses the importance of long-term data availability and multi-actor interoperability.
Finally, many models lack robust data sovereignty, limiting industry trust.
Why We Need “Living” Digital Passports
A living passport evolves with the product, capturing:
- Repairs, updates, maintenance events
- Field data from IoT sensors
- Service interactions
- Circular processes such as refurbishing or recycling
This aligns with modern Product–Service Systems (PSS). The PSS-Pass grant highlights the importance of shared lifecycle data for AI, machine learning, and digital twins.
Enter DPSSP: A Service-Aware, Dynamic Passport
DPSSP (Digital Product–Service System Passport) builds on the DPP concept and the Industry 4.0 Asset Administration Shell (AAS), creating a decentralized, modular, interoperable architecture. It integrates IoT data, lifecycle events, semantics, and cross-stakeholder services into one system.
Core principles:
- Semantic interoperability
- Federated, sovereign data management
- Event-driven updates
- Unified product + service representation
What This Means for Industry
A living passport enables:
- Manufacturers to optimize design, maintenance, and compliance
- Service providers to implement predictive maintenance and upgrades
- Regulators to access real-time compliance data
- Consumers to trust product information throughout the lifecycle
The Future of Passports Is Dynamic
Static DPPs will not meet upcoming industrial, regulatory, or circularity expectations. DPSSPs — dynamic, event-driven, decentralized — will define the next generation of lifecycle transparency.
Projects like PSS-Pass show that the future passport is not a static record, but a living digital ecosystem.
Author: Giovanni Di Orio – Unparallel