The Digital Product Passport glossary.

A battery passport is the Digital Product Passport for an individual battery, holding its unique identity, chemistry, carbon footprint, state of health and recycled-content data. It is required for industrial, EV and light-means-of-transport batteries over 2 kWh from 18 February 2027 under the EU Battery Regulation. Each battery carries a QR code linking to its passport.

Learn more: Battery passport solution

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is an EU tariff on the embedded carbon of imported goods such as steel, aluminium, cement and fertilisers, designed to prevent carbon leakage. Importers must report embedded emissions and, from 2026, buy CBAM certificates to match them. The carbon data behind CBAM overlaps directly with Digital Product Passport carbon fields.

Learn more: CBAM and steel and aluminium DPP

A circular economy is an economic model that keeps materials and products in use for as long as possible through reuse, repair, refurbishment and recycling, rather than discarding them. It is the core goal behind the ESPR and the Digital Product Passport. The DPP enables circularity by making the data needed to repair, reuse and recycle a product available to everyone in the chain.

Learn more: How ESPR drives circularity

CIRPASS is the EU-funded initiative that defined the cross-sector concept and technical groundwork for the Digital Product Passport. Its work shaped the data model, interoperability principles and reference architecture now feeding the ESPR delegated acts. CIRPASS is a key reference point for how DPPs are expected to be structured.

Learn more: Where DPP standards come from

A data carrier is the physical marking on a product that links it to its Digital Product Passport, most commonly a QR code, data matrix or NFC tag. Scanning the carrier resolves to the passport's unique web address. The ESPR requires the carrier to be present on the product, its packaging or accompanying documentation.

Learn more: Choosing a DPP data carrier

A delegated act is a legally binding EU rule adopted by the European Commission that fills in the detailed requirements left open by a framework law like the ESPR. For each product group, an ESPR delegated act defines the exact DPP data fields, performance thresholds and timelines. This is why a textile DPP and a battery passport can have very different requirements and deadlines.

Learn more: How ESPR delegated acts work

A Digital Link resolver is the web service that receives a scanned GS1 Digital Link and redirects the user to the right destination, such as the product's Digital Product Passport. It can route different audiences to different pages - a consumer to a manual, a recycler to disposal data - from the same code. The resolver is the bridge between a physical data carrier and live online passport data.

Learn more: How a Digital Link resolver works

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a structured, machine-readable record of a product's identity, materials, sustainability and compliance data, accessed by scanning a data carrier such as a QR code. The EU is making DPPs mandatory for most physical products sold in its market under the ESPR. It lets buyers, recyclers and regulators retrieve verified product information across the full lifecycle.

Learn more: DPP rollout timeline 2025-2030

An economic operator is any business in the supply chain that the ESPR holds responsible for compliance, including the manufacturer, authorised representative, importer, distributor and fulfilment service provider. The operator placing a product on the EU market is responsible for creating and maintaining its Digital Product Passport. Each operator has a unique operator identifier referenced in the passport.

Learn more: Who ESPR holds responsible

Embodied carbon is the total greenhouse-gas emissions released to extract, produce and transport a product before it is used, measured in kg CO2-equivalent. For carbon-intensive materials like steel and aluminium it is a required Digital Product Passport field and a CBAM reporting input. Lowering embodied carbon is central to product decarbonisation.

Learn more: Carbon data for steel and aluminium DPP

An Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is a standardised, independently verified document that reports a product's lifecycle environmental impacts based on a life-cycle assessment. It is widely used in construction and materials and feeds carbon and impact data into a Digital Product Passport. EPDs follow ISO 14025 and EN 15804 and give buyers comparable environmental data.

Learn more: EPDs in steel and aluminium DPP

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, is the EU framework law that sets sustainability and circularity requirements for products and mandates the Digital Product Passport. It replaces the older Ecodesign Directive and applies to almost all physical goods, with rules set product group by product group via delegated acts. ESPR entered into force in July 2024.

Learn more: ESPR regulation guide

The EU Battery Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 is the sustainability and due-diligence law for batteries placed on the EU market, and it is the first regulation to require a Digital Product Passport. It mandates a battery passport for industrial, EV and LMT batteries above 2 kWh from 18 February 2027. It also sets rules on carbon footprint, recycled content, collection and supply-chain due diligence.

Learn more: Battery passport solution

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a policy that makes producers financially and operationally responsible for their products at end of life, including collection, recycling and disposal. Producers pay fees that fund take-back and recycling schemes. A Digital Product Passport supplies the material and recyclability data that EPR schemes need to assess products.

Learn more: EPR data in a packaging DPP

GS1 Digital Link is a web URI standard that turns a product identifier such as a GTIN into a clickable, scannable web address. It is the carrier syntax the EU recommends for connecting a QR code to a Digital Product Passport. A single Digital Link can resolve to different destinations - a passport, a manual or a recycling page - depending on who scans it.

Learn more: GS1 Digital Link technical guide

A GTIN (Global Trade Item Number) is the GS1 standard barcode number that uniquely identifies a trade item worldwide. It is the most common foundation for the unique product identifier inside a Digital Product Passport. When wrapped in a GS1 Digital Link, a GTIN becomes the web address a QR code resolves to.

Learn more: Using GTINs in a Digital Link

A market surveillance authority is the national body that checks whether products on the EU market meet legal requirements and enforces the rules through inspections, fines and recalls. Under the ESPR, these authorities verify that a Digital Product Passport exists and is accurate. They can pull a product from the market if its DPP is missing or false.

Learn more: How ESPR is enforced

Recycled content is the share of a product's material that comes from recycled rather than virgin sources, expressed as a percentage by weight. The ESPR and sector regulations increasingly set minimum recycled-content thresholds and require the figure to be declared in the Digital Product Passport. It is a key circular-economy metric that buyers and regulators verify.

Learn more: Recycled content in textile DPP

Repairability is how easily a product can be repaired, scored on factors such as spare-part availability, ease of disassembly and access to repair information. The ESPR can require a repairability score and spare-part data in the Digital Product Passport to extend product lifespans. Higher repairability reduces waste and supports the right to repair.

Learn more: Repairability data for electronics DPP

The SCIP database is the EU database of Substances of Concern In articles or in complex objects (Products), run by the European Chemicals Agency. Companies must notify SCIP when an article contains a substance of very high concern above 0.1 percent by weight. Its data feeds directly into the substance-of-concern fields of a Digital Product Passport.

Learn more: Substance data for electronics DPP

A substance of concern is a chemical that harms health or the environment and whose presence in a product must be declared, such as a REACH substance of very high concern. The ESPR requires the Digital Product Passport to disclose substances of concern so buyers and recyclers can handle the product safely. This transparency is one of the core purposes of the DPP.

Learn more: Substance tracking in electronics DPP

A Unique Product Identifier (UPI) is the code that uniquely identifies a product, model or item so its Digital Product Passport can be found and trusted. The ESPR defines unique identifiers at three levels - product, operator and facility - typically built on GS1 standards such as the GTIN. The UPI is what a data carrier encodes and a resolver looks up.

Learn more: Product identifiers for DPP