What is a Digital Product Passport? A complete guide for 2025

Discover how Spherity’s VERA Digital Product Passport solution helps global manufacturers stay compliant, traceable, and sustainable under new EU regulations like the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and the EU Battery Regulation.

The supply chain wake-up call

In an era of accelerated digitization and sustainability mandates, global supply chains face an urgent question: how do we ensure transparency, trust, and compliance—without slowing down operations?

For decades, manufacturers and suppliers have relied on siloed systems and static documentation to manage product data. But as global regulations tighten and consumer expectations rise, these outdated methods are no longer enough. From tracking the origin of materials to measuring environmental impact, businesses now require verifiable, real-time insights into every product they design, build, and sell.

That’s where the Digital Product Passport (DPP) enters the picture—and with it, VERA, Spherity’s secure, scalable, and regulation-ready Digital Product Passport software.

What is a Digital Product Passport?

A Digital Product Passport is much more than a digital label. It is a dynamic, tamper-proof record that captures a product’s entire lifecycle—from raw materials to recycling. Each passport contains standardized and machine-readable data about a product’s origin, composition, environmental footprint, repairability, and regulatory certifications.

This passport stays with the product throughout its journey, enabling everyone from manufacturers and regulators to end-users and recyclers to access trusted information on demand. Unlike traditional documentation, which is fragmented and often unverifiable, a Digital Product Passport ensures a single source of truth that can be set up to be interoperable across supply chains and IT systems.

Through technologies like decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials, platforms like VERA ensure that the data behind each product passport is not only accurate, but also secure, transparent, and shareable—without compromising confidentiality.

Why DPPs are now essential: The regulatory push

The rising demand for product transparency isn’t just coming from consumers or investors—it’s being written into law. In the European Union, regulatory changes are fundamentally reshaping how products are manufactured, labeled, and monitored.

The most notable is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which officially entered into force on July 18, 2024. As part of the EU Green Deal, ESPR aims to improve the sustainability of nearly all physical goods sold in the European Union, excluding only food, feed, and medicines. The regulation introduces mandatory Digital Product Passports for high-impact product categories, starting with batteries, textiles, electronics, and construction materials. By 2027, any regulated product placed on the EU market will need a DPP.

As the European Commission explains:

“The Digital Product Passport will make product-related information available to all actors in the value chain, including consumers, to make sustainable choices.”

But ESPR is not the only regulation driving change. The EU Battery Regulation (2023/1542) requires that industrial and electric vehicle batteries include a Digital Battery Passport starting in 2027. This passport must contain critical data such as carbon footprint, material sourcing, performance, and end-of-life instructions—ensuring traceability and accountability from cradle to grave.

Together, these frameworks represent a major shift. Manufacturers are no longer expected to simply meet performance benchmarks; they must prove it—with verifiable, interoperable, and secure data.

A real-world Digital Product Passport solution example: BVG’s Battery Passports

For many, the idea of a Digital Product Passport still feels theoretical. But at Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG), Berlin’s public transport authority, the concept is already in full motion.

In 2024, BVG, Berlin’s public transport authority, piloted the Digital Product Passport for Batteries (Digital Battery Passport) for one of its new electric bus fleets supplied by Solaris. To prepare for future compliance with the EU Battery Regulation and strengthen sustainability reporting, BVG worked with Spherity to test how a Digital Product Passport solution could enhance transparency.

Our Digital Product Passport software, VERA, was integrated within a week, assigning digital passports to the fleet’s batteries and capturing key data on material sourcing, health status, regulatory documentation, carbon footprint, and recyclability. This proof of concept showed how Digital Product Passports can be applied in real operations, helping BVG reduce manual reporting efforts and improve visibility into the lifecycle impact of its e-mobility investments.

Following this pilot, Spherity is ready to support other EV bus fleets and manufacturers on their Digital Product Passport journey—ensuring compliance, efficiency, and greater public trust.

As Kevin Doãn, Battery Technologist at BVG, put it:

“To fully unlock the potential of high-voltage lithium-ion batteries, we need to dive deeper into supply chains. A collaborative approach is essential to create transparency and ensure comparability between different battery technologies.”

This is a clear example of how VERA empowers organizations not just to comply with future regulations, but to lead in sustainability and innovation today. Download the success story to learn more.

The Global Perspective: DPPs Beyond Europe

While Europe is leading the regulatory charge, Digital Product Passports are quickly becoming a global standard.

In China, sustainability goals tied to the country’s dual carbon strategy have accelerated the implementation of lifecycle transparency for EV batteries and electronics. China's Green Supply Chain Assessment and national ESG reporting frameworks echo many of the requirements outlined in ESPR.

South Korea has introduced digital eco-labeling for electronic products and automotive components, focusing on recyclability and carbon tracking. Similarly, Japan is embedding lifecycle data into its Circular Economy Roadmap, especially in sectors such as electronics and batteries.

For multinational manufacturers, this means a DPP strategy isn’t just about accessing the EU market—it’s about staying competitive and regulation-ready in multiple jurisdictions. A robust, standards-aligned solution like VERA can streamline compliance across borders, languages, and technical systems.

Why VERA, the Digital Product Passport software by Spherity?

Spherity’s Digital Product Passport software, VERA, is purpose-built to support the new era of product transparency and data integrity. Designed around open standards, VERA makes it easy to assign a digital identity to each product or component and associate it with authenticated, machine-readable data across its entire lifecycle.

Rather than forcing companies into a one-size-fits-all system, VERA is modular and customizable. It integrates with existing enterprise systems (ERP, PLM, BMS), aligns with emerging EU data space frameworks, and supports multiple industry verticals—from automotive and electronics to textiles and pharmaceuticals.

Security and trust are central. VERA uses decentralized identity technologies to ensure that product data is cryptographically secure, independently verifiable, and privacy-preserving. This means that businesses can collaborate confidently across complex global value chains—without sacrificing confidentiality or data ownership.

Whether you're managing a global battery supply chain or looking to verify sustainability claims in textiles, VERA adapts to your business needs while ensuring full alignment with ESPR, the Battery Regulation, and other global frameworks.

What our Digital Product Passport solution, VERA, delivers: Real value for business

For manufacturers, trade professionals, and sustainability leaders, the benefits of adopting a Digital Product Passport solution like VERA go far beyond ticking regulatory boxes.

1. Automated compliance: What previously required weeks of manual data collection and documentation can now be accomplished in minutes. This frees up resources and reduces the risk of errors or delays during audits.

2. Full traceability: Our solution allows full traceability across every product's lifecycle. Whether you’re verifying the source of raw materials or ensuring responsible recycling at the end-of-life phase, you have instant access to standardized and verifiable data—ensuring faster decision-making and reduced compliance risks.

3. Anti-counterfeit protection: By assigning each product a unique, verifiable digital identity, VERA protects against fraud, IP theft, and unauthorized replication—safeguarding both brand reputation and consumer safety.

4. Supports ESG goals: With built-in capabilities to capture carbon footprint, social impact metrics, and circularity indicators, VERA enables transparent ESG disclosures that meet investor, partner, and consumer expectations. This can open doors to green financing, sustainable procurement partnerships, and regulatory incentives.

5. Efficiency: VERA reduces administrative overhead, eliminates data silos, and fosters cross-functional collaboration across procurement, compliance, sustainability, and IT teams—creating a more agile, resilient organization.

   
   

   Why act now

   
   

   The ESPR is already in force, and deadlines for Digital Product Passport implementation are approaching quickly. Manufacturers that delay risk not only legal penalties, but also falling behind in an increasingly competitive and regulated global market.

   
   

   By starting your DPP journey now, you position your business for success through early compliance, increased transparency, and enhanced operational resilience.

   
   

   Companies like BVG are already seeing the impact. With VERA, they’ve moved beyond manual audits and fragmented reporting to a world where compliance is automated, transparency is measurable, and sustainability is verifiable.

   
   

   Explore how VERA can help your business:

   Learn more: www.spherity.com/digital-product-passport

   Book a consultation: Schedule here