Digital Product Passport

By DeSL

A new requirement for transparency across the textile and apparel industry — and an opportunity to build a stronger, more connected product data foundation.

Digital Product Passports, Governed at the Source

DeSL, TSG’s PLM brand, builds and governs Digital Product Passports for fashion, apparel, and footwear brands — creating, evidencing, and publishing them from data already managed across product development, sourcing, and quality. Rather than treating the passport as a standalone repository to publish and maintain, the approach is to govern that data where it is created, verify it against evidence, and publish it dynamically to whoever needs to see it.

Govern it — Product, supplier, and quality data managed at the source, within the systems that already generate it.
Evidence it — Everyday commercial documents and certificates checked against governed records, not assumed.
Publish it — A role-appropriate passport assembled on demand, never maintained as a static copy.

More Than a QR Code on a Garment

A Digital Product Passport is a structured record spanning identity, composition, manufacturing, sustainability, compliance, care, repair, and end-of-life information. Consumers, regulators, and supply chain partners each see a different view of the same governed information:

Brand, style, SKU, GTIN, imagery

Product identification

Bill of materials, specifications, colorways

Product definition

Suppliers, mills, factories, origin, orders, batches

Supply chain

Recycled content, circularity, environmental claims

Sustainability

Test reports, inspections, certificates

Quality & Compliance

Care, repair, and recycling guidance

Consumer Information

ESPR Requirements Checklist for Textile & Apparel Brands

The EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) is moving fashion and textile companies toward a level of transparency they have not had to provide before. Regulatory detail is still evolving, but the shape of the data required is already clear — and organizations that start now will be ready well before deadlines apply. This is not only a compliance question. A Digital Product Passport is becoming a new way to create, govern, and share trusted product information across an increasingly complex global supply chain — a capability with value beyond the regulation that triggered it.

July 2024 — ESPR in force

The EU’s legal framework for Digital Product Passports is already active.

July 2026 — Destruction ban applies

Large enterprises can no longer destroy unsold apparel, clothing accessories, or footwear.

2027 (expected) — Textile delegated act

Detailed Digital Product Passport requirements for textiles are expected to be set.

Now — Build the foundation

Strengthen product and supplier data ahead of the requirements that will depend on it.

One Product, Many Passports

The same product can often require several different Digital Product Passports — not because of what it’s called, but because of how it’s actually made and supplied. Different suppliers, bills of materials, colorways, sizes, or production batches can each carry different declared materials or certifications, so a passport needs to be generated at the right level, not by style alone. DeSL’s platform, part of TSG, generates passports at exactly this granularity.

Governance Before Publication
Traceability Beyond Tier 1

Governance Before Publication

For most organizations, the data a Digital Product Passport reports on already exists — it is simply spread across PLM, ERP, supplier portals, quality systems, certification repositories, spreadsheets, and documents. Building a standalone DPP repository on top of that only creates another copy of the same fragmented data.

A more durable approach strengthens the systems that already govern product information, so the passport becomes a live view of trusted data rather than a separate database to maintain:

Identify the authoritative source for every data element.
Establish approval workflows and version control.
Validate supplier-provided information before publication.
Maintain supporting evidence alongside structured data.
Integrate systems rather than duplicate information.
Continuously improve data quality through governance.

Traceability Beyond Tier 1

Most brands can see clearly who assembles their finished product — Tier 1, cut-make-trim. Visibility becomes partial at Tier 2 (mills and processors) and Tier 3 (spinners and yarn producers), and is often absent altogether at Tier 4+ (fibre, cotton, and chemical suppliers). A single style can pass through five or six tiers before it reaches a cutting table.

Extending visibility further doesn’t always mean new data collection — the evidence often already exists in everyday commercial documents: invoices, purchase orders, packing lists, certificates of origin, and laboratory reports, matched against governed product and supplier records.

This also means separating two kinds of traceability. A bill of materials describes what was supposed to be used — structural traceability, reflecting design intent. What a commercial record actually demonstrates — a named quantity moving between named parties — is evidential traceability, and it’s increasingly what regulators and auditors expect. It has to work at batch level: two garments of the same style, colorway, and size can draw on different production batches, each with its own certification status.

Beyond Compliance: The ROI of Digital Product Passport Readiness

The return on that investment reaches beyond compliance: stronger product data supports circular business models, faster sourcing decisions, and more credible sustainability claims. Organizations that treat Digital Product Passport readiness as a data-governance opportunity — not a standalone compliance project — will be best positioned as requirements are finalized.

Getting Started

Digital Product Passport readiness follows a practical, phased path: reviewing existing systems and data, strengthening them at the source, connecting them through open APIs, and building toward governed, automated publication as regulation firms up. DeSL’s platform, part of TSG, supports this path with a structured, phased implementation.

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