How Holzweiler is preparing for the EU's Digital Product Passport legislation

There's one brand that is a step ahead of forthcoming Digital Product Passport (DPP) regulation from the European Commision. Holzweiler has partnered with EON to make its garments more traceable, transparent and, yes, compliant.Their first digitized products, which will launch in its spring/summer 2023 collection, will feature a unique QR code that connects them to a “digital twin” in the cloud. This Digital Identity (Digital ID) gives every item a “voice,” allowing companies to build ongoing relationships with their customers past the point of sale, identify—and confirm the authenticity—of products throughout their life cycle and successfully scale resale, repair and recycling ambitions. Just as social media platforms give people unique identities online, EON’s Digital ID does the same for products.

With regulatory scrutiny on the rise, Digital ID technology is in an inflection point in brand adoption. The DPP, itself a component of the European Union’s Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, is part of the bloc’s sweeping sustainability and circularity ambitions. By imbuing products with information on their origin, composition, repair, disassembly and recyclability, products become “interoperable”, enabling all stakeholders to access the data they need.

EON is an “expert shareholder” in CIRPASS, a European Commission-backed consortium of more than 30 industry partners that aims to help brands pilot and deploy DPPs with shared rules, principles, taxonomy and standards from 2023 on. The strategy is expected to be formally approved by the European Parliament in 2024, following which details such as data requirements, data carrier types, the granularity of information and audience information will be unveiled. If everything goes according to plan, DPPs will be mandatory on all textile and textile products sold in the EU by 2030.