From Awareness to Implementation: Why 2026 Is a Turning Point for Digital Product Passports

This time last year, most conversations about Digital Product Passports (DPPs) started with a simple question: “What are they?”

Today, the conversation has fundamentally shifted.

In 2026, we’re seeing Digital Product Passports move from regulatory concept to operational reality. With clearer signals emerging from the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), and global brands actively presenting live implementations, DPPs are no longer theoretical compliance artefacts, they are becoming a practical digital foundation for product data, auditability, and lifecycle transparency.

ESPR Is Accelerating Real-World Adoption

Recent ESPR updates and industry reporting show increasing certainty around phased roll-outs, product category prioritisation, and the supporting digital infrastructure needed to make DPPs enforceable and scalable.

What’s important isn’t just that regulation is coming, it’s that the conversation has moved decisively from policy intent to how organisations actually implement DPPs in complex, real-world environments.

That shift is visible in 2026 through:

• Industry summits dedicated entirely to DPP delivery and interoperability
• Major manufacturers sharing practical lessons, not just roadmaps
• Growing alignment between sustainability, compliance, engineering, and service teams

In short: DPPs are now being designed to work with how products really exist and operate — not how regulations imagine them in isolation.

Digital Product Passports as a Digital Layer for Physical Assets

One of the most powerful, and often overlooked, uses of Digital Product Passports is their role in digitalising real-world assets, particularly large, complex machinery and industrial equipment.

For these products, a DPP is not just a sustainability record. It becomes a single, auditable digital layer that sits alongside existing systems and processes, without replacing them.

In practice, this means a Digital Product Passport can hold or reference:

• Asset identity and configuration
• Regulatory declarations and compliance evidence
• Inspection and audit records
• Maintenance and service logs
• Parts replacement and modification history
• ESG-relevant operational data

Rather than being scattered across ERP systems, service platforms, spreadsheets, and PDFs, this information is linked to the asset itself, accessible to authorised stakeholders throughout its lifecycle.

This is particularly valuable for:

• Capital equipment and large machinery
• Engineered-to-order products
• Assets with long service lives and evolving compliance obligations
• Products subject to inspection, certification, or market surveillance

Compliance Without Disruption

A key lesson emerging in 2026 is that successful DPP implementations do not require ripping out existing systems.

Instead, the most effective approaches treat the Digital Product Passport as:

• A read-only or controlled-write layer
• A unifying digital reference point
• An audit-ready interface for regulators, customers, and internal teams

This approach reduces delivery risk, accelerates time to compliance, and allows organisations to evolve their DPP capabilities over time, aligning well with ESPR’s phased implementation model.

What This Means for Organisations Today

For large multinationals, DPPs are already becoming part of enterprise-scale data strategies.

But for small and mid-sized manufacturers, brands, and asset owners, the opportunity, and challenge, is different.

2026 is the moment to move from:

• Awareness → planning
• Pilots → production-ready architectures
• Isolated data → lifecycle-based asset views

Done well, Digital Product Passports don’t just satisfy regulation, they unlock better asset visibility, improved serviceability, and stronger trust across value chains.

Looking Ahead

The emergence of dedicated DPP summits and real implementation case studies signals something important: Digital Product Passports are no longer a future obligation. They are a present-day capability.

The organisations that act now thoughtfully, pragmatically, and with an eye on real-world assets will be best placed to meet ESPR requirements while creating lasting operational value.

If you’re exploring how Digital Product Passports could work for your products or assets, especially where compliance, maintenance, and auditability matter, now is the right time to start the conversation.