In the next few years, having a great product won’t be enough. If you can’t prove where it came from, how it was made, and where it’s headed next, it may not have a place in the market.

That’s the direction set by the EU’s upcoming Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), with the Digital Product Passport (DPP) at its core. Not just a new compliance tool, but a sign that fashion’s value chain is being rewritten—from linear to circular, from opaque to data-backed.

When the EU first announced upcoming regulations mandating Digital Product Passports (DPPs) for textiles, many businesses flinched. To some, it sounded like more red tape: another checklist to navigate in an already over-regulated space.

In fact, about 90% of brands surveyed by Bain & Company admitted they see DPPs primarily as a compliance burden rather than a growth lever

But zooming out, DPPs represent something bigger: a breakthrough in traceability, offering a system-level upgrade to how materials are sourced, sold, and resold. As Aaron Cheris, a partner at Bain & Company specializing in retail, customer strategy, and marketing, noted

They are a foundational shift in how value is created, captured, and sustained over a product’s lifetime

And there’s a broader shift underway: Digital Product Passports are beginning to be seen not just as a compliance requirement, but as a strategic asset for designers and textile innovators — a tool for building deeper brand value.

Keep reading to explore how DPPs can reshape sourcing, elevate storytelling, and enhance secondhand value in today’s fashion economy, unlocking hidden potential across the value chain.

A Quick Refresh on the Digital Product Passport (DPP)

The Eco-design for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), introduced by the EU, requires that most consumer products - including apparel and textiles - carry digital product passports by the end of this decade. The rollout is already underway, with priority sectors like fashion expected to begin implementing DPPs between 2026 and 2030:

• By 2026, brands will be required to organize their product information through a centralized digital registry.

• By 2027, sectors like textiles will be among the first expected to fully align with this regulation.

• By 2030, the vast majority of physical goods sold in the EU will need to include a Digital Product Passport (DPP).

But what does the DPP provide? Each DPP will include detailed data about a product’s materials, production journey, certifications, care instructions, and end-of-life options. Some of the informations provided in it are:

• Manufacturer Details: Information about the company that produced the product.

• Material Composition: Details about the materials used in the product.

• Product Characteristics: Specifications and features of the product.

• Repair Options: Guidance on how the product can be repaired.

• Disposal Methods: Instructions for environmentally responsible disposal.

And how does the DPP help with sustainability and circularity in fashion? Here’s how:

• Radical transparency at point of purchase → Shoppers scan a QR code to reveal sourcing, materials, certifications, and carbon footprint—building immediate trust.

• Trust through traceability → Brands share verified supply chain data, showcasing ethical labor and low-impact practices.

• Effortless resale → Product details auto-fill resale listings, enabling seamless, one-click secondhand selling with verified authenticity.

• Smarter design via circular insights → Brands track product journeys and resale trends, informing more durable, desirable, and circular design decisions.

• Simplified recycling → DPPs provide fiber content and recycling instructions, guiding responsible disposal and material recovery.

• Mainstreaming repair culture → Built-in repair guides and service links help extend product life—encouraging fix, not toss.

At its core, the passport is a digital identity designed to enable transparency and circularity at scale. A literal digital identity cards for products

They function by embedding technologies such as QR codes, which, when scanned, unlock detailed information about the product.

Businesses can view this as just another compliance task, one more document to file, another box to check. And as Bain & Company’s findings showed, that’s exactly how most brands are approaching it. But there’s another way to look at it. Technically, DPPs could actually reduce future friction and make operations smoother.

Instead of taking photos, writing product descriptions, and manually proving an item’s authenticity, the digital passport acts as verified proof of origin, composition, and condition—allowing resale platforms to list the item instantly.

This kind of automation could eliminate some of the biggest headaches for fashion businesses.

Yes, getting started will involve compliance work and new systems. But once implemented, the result is a seamless, intelligence-backed lifecycle infrastructure. And that’s just the operational upside.

What makes DPPs even more promising is the broader system shift they enable—where compliance isn't just a requirement, but a pathway to deeper brand value.

Traceability Meets Strategy: A Brand’s Guide to Getting Ahead on DPPs

A recent Bain & Company article introduced a new perspective on DPPs—framing them not as red tape, but as a value-driven opportunity and even a potential revenue-generating tool.

DPPs can act as a flywheel for growth – deepening trust, expanding participation, and making circular shopping second nature.

So brands face a choice: treat it as tedious paperwork, or embrace it as a strategic revolution.

The latter path (though challenging) promises rewards in customer trust, new revenue streams, and resilience in a changing market. And the list goes on:

• Traceability becomes a competitive advantage. When brands can instantly verify material origin, certifications, and supplier practices, they gain credibility with both customers and partners, building trust and reducing risk across the supply chain.

• Circularity becomes operational. With data embedded in each product, brands can seamlessly integrate repair, resale, buyback, and recycling programs - unlocking new services and revenue while extending product life.

• Loyalty and trust deepen. Transparency isn’t just good ethics, it’s good business. When customers can scan a garment and see its full story, they connect more deeply and are more likely to return.

• Product lifetime value expands. With DPPs, a single product isn’t limited to one transaction. It can drive value across resale, re-commerce, and even brand-led take-back schemes, multiplying revenue potential.

For brands willing to invest early, this opens the door to long-term revenue and impact, not just compliance. Especially in a moment which [consumers are increasingly demanding accountability](https://world-collective.com/blog/how-tariff-shifts-are-reshaping-consumer-behavior-and-what-it-means-for-small-brands#:~:text=According to PwC’s,a competitive advantage.), from where materials come from to how workers are treated.

On top of that, new consumer behavior studies show that trust and transparency are now top decision factors, especially among Gen Z and millennial shoppers who prioritize brands that feel authentic and aligned with their values

This makes it clear: now is the time for brands to embrace this new solution – one that benefits the planet, strengthens the industry, and drives long-term business growth.

A Company Helping Brands Step Their Compliance Up

Adding compliance to a brand’s strategy is never easy. In fact, it’s one of the biggest hurdles to ESG implementation across every business function today – and fashion is no exception. Regulations are rising, data is scattered, and many teams are still operating without the tools to keep up.

But a new wave of tech-forward solutions is helping close the gap.

Kinset is one of those companies.

Kinset is a climate-forward technology partner helping fashion businesses make regulatory compliance less reactive – and more strategic. Its platform offers more than traceability; it delivers real-time, data-driven insights that help brands understand their footprint and operate with intention.

Through its Digital Product Passport (DPP) solution, Kinset enables centralized, secure product data management that integrates directly with enterprise systems. Instead of scrambling for documentation or relying on fragmented spreadsheets, brands can now synchronize supply chain, product, and lifecycle data with speed and consistency.

Even better: batch updates across entire product lines make it easier to stay agile as requirements shift.

But what makes Kinset especially aligned with forward-thinking brands is its storytelling engine.

Powered by AI, the platform takes verified impact data and transforms it into clear, fact-based narratives—the kind of transparency today’s consumers expect, and future regulations will demand.

At World Collective, we see Kinset as part of the growing toolkit that helps small and emerging brands scale responsibly. Because compliance shouldn’t be a blocker. It should be a path to better decisions, smarter sourcing, and deeper trust.

Getting Ready for DPP Compliance: What Fashion Businesses Need to Know

Here’s how fashion brands can start shifting from a compliance mindset to a value-creation mindset when it comes to Digital Product Passports:

1. Map Your Supply Chain Data (and Demand It from Partners)

Many brands today struggle with disconnected data from suppliers – information on materials, sourcing, and certifications might be buried in emails, PDFs, or disparate systems.

The first step is to audit what data you have and what’s missing. Engage your suppliers now to gather details on material origin, processing facilities, and any sustainability certifications for each product/component.

Not only will this set you up for DPP compliance, it can uncover weak links (like a supplier who can’t or won’t provide traceability). Brands should start requesting traceability documentation as a standard part of purchasing. This might mean updating contracts to require suppliers to share data or use certain tracking tools.

The goal is to create a continuous thread of information from raw material to finished good. By building this transparency upstream, you reduce the last-minute scramble to populate a product passport database in 2026 or 2027.

2. Invest in Digital Infrastructure (Beyond Spreadsheets)

Handling DPP data isn’t as simple as filling out a spreadsheet – it will likely require new software tools and system integrations.

Forward-looking companies are starting to integrate DPP capabilities with their Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems and other enterprise software. This “single source of truth” approach means that the data feeding your DPP is the same data used internally for sourcing, inventory, and sustainability reporting.

Look into platforms (or emerging DPP service providers) that can help automate the gathering, storing, and sharing of product data in a secure way.

The key is to avoid manual data handling at scale – it’s error-prone and inefficient.

System integration is your friend here: for example, linking supplier databases, material databases, and point-of-sale systems into one flow that updates the product’s digital record as it moves through its life.

3. Collaborate and Pilot Now, Not Later

2027 might feel distant, but transforming supply chain operations and IT systems is a multi-year effort.

Brands – especially small and mid-sized ones – shouldn’t wait until the last minute to test out DPP concepts.

Pilot a digital passport on a single product line to see what hurdles arise (perhaps a missing data point or a need for supplier training). This phased approach will put you ahead of the curve. Notably, early movers can also help shape standards. If you engage with EU working groups or industry bodies now, you might influence how DPP data gets standardized for fashion.

Remember, brands that proactively treat DPPs as a strategic project will see benefits even before the full mandate hits.

4. Leverage DPPs for Storytelling and Consumer Engagement

One pain point we hear often is the struggles with sustainability storytelling. Brands struggle to communicate their positive impact in a credible, interactive way.

DPPs present a golden opportunity to let the product speak for itself.

By embedding rich content into the passport (certifications, origin stories, impact statistics), you give consumers a reason to scan and learn. This interactive storytelling can deepen the customer’s connection to the product and brand.

Brands can plan what narrative they want each product to tell: Are you proud of using regenerative cotton? Did you partner with artisans on the embroidery? Is the item designed to be recyclable?

All of that can live in the passport.

Marketing teams should work with sustainability teams to ensure the DPP isn’t just raw data, but presented in a compelling way that reinforces brand values and trust.

World Collective & Kinset: Building Toward Scalable DPP

In partnership with Kinset, World Collective is advancing a next-generation transparency solution through a DPP Compliance Pilot, launching with four pioneering suppliers from our global network: Cabes (Burkina Faso), Climatex (Taiwan), Mithela (Bangladesh), and Usha Yarns (India).

The pilot will leverage Kinset’s modular, API-based technology to integrate critical supplier data — including material composition, production steps, and sustainability metrics — with a special focus on Tier 2–4 suppliers, who traditionally remain invisible in traceability systems. This data will then be linked to a unique digital identifier (such as a QR code or NFC tag) applied to the final product.

For brands of all sizes, this means they will be able to source materials within the World Collective Ecosystem already equipped with transparent, verified information about how, where, and by whom they were produced. By scanning a simple code, brands and consumers alike can instantly view the full story behind a product — turning complex supply chain data into a clear, engaging narrative.

This partnership bridges the gap between physical goods and digital records in a seamless, scalable way. It provides a compliance-ready foundation that doubles as a marketing and storytelling tool — no longer reserved for luxury giants alone, but accessible to any brand that wants to communicate credible sustainability credentials.

Ultimately, Digital Product Passports shouldn't be treated just as another a regulatory checkbox. While they are rooted in compliance, their true potential lies in reshaping the industry for good — enabling greater transparency, circularity, and smarter, values-driven sourcing. World Collective is proud to build the infrastructure that supports this new paradigm.

Want to learn more or explore how your brand can get involved? Reach out to our team, and follow along on Instagram and LinkedIn for updates from the field.

And if you want to dive deeper into Digital Product Passports and what they mean for your brand, click here.