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Many organisations already manage large amounts of product information. Material composition, supplier data, product specifications, environmental information, repair instructions and certifications are often stored across different systems within the organisation.
Digital Product Passport implementation introduces a new question: is that existing data ready to function as Digital Product Passport data?
The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) establishes Digital Product Passports as a way of making product information available digitally. To support data exchange across the European Union, Digital Product Passports are designed around structured, machine-readable and interoperable product information.
This means organisations need to look beyond collecting information and consider how it is organised, maintained and exchanged across different systems.
Most companies already hold much of the information that will eventually populate a Digital Product Passport. The challenge is not always collecting additional data, but preparing existing information so that it can be exchanged, interpreted and maintained consistently throughout the product lifecycle.
A product specification stored as a PDF is digital. A spreadsheet containing supplier information is digital. Product information stored in an ERP or PLM system is digital too. However, digital information is not automatically Digital Product Passport-ready.
Preparing product information for a passport involves more than converting papers into digital files. Information also needs to be organised using consistent data models, identifiers, language and definitions so that different systems can process it reliably and exchange it without ambiguity.
Two companies may already be able to exchange product information electronically. That alone does not guarantee that their systems interpret the information in the same way.
Imagine a product identifier stored as “Model” in one system and “Style” in another. Both may refer to the same information, but unless those fields are mapped to a shared definition, software cannot automatically determine that they represent the same product attribute.
The same principle applies when information is prepared for the Digital Product Passport Registry. Data needs to match the expected structure, field definitions and formats so that it can be interpreted consistently across systems rather than simply transferred.
Semantic interoperability ensures that product information carries the same meaning wherever it is used. As Digital Product Passports connect manufacturers, suppliers, service providers and the future Registry, this shared understanding becomes essential for making product data reusable across the value chain.
Semantic interoperability is not simply a technical best practice. It is part of the Digital Product Passport framework established by the ESPR.
The Regulation identifies technical, semantic and organisational interoperability among the principles supporting Digital Product Passports across the European Union. Together, these principles help product information remain usable across different economic operators, software systems and regulatory contexts.
This direction became more concrete with the adoption of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1778 establishing the DPP Registry. As part of the Registry, the European Commission is establishing a Semantic Repository that will act as the common reference for Digital Product Passport data models, semantic definitions and controlled vocabularies across product groups.
The Repository makes these resources available in a machine-readable format and includes documented APIs, multilingual definitions and versioned data models. This allows software systems to retrieve and apply the same semantic specifications rather than relying on proprietary or inconsistent interpretations.
The Semantic Repository does not determine which information a Digital Product Passport must contain. Those requirements will continue to be established through product-specific delegated acts. Instead, it provides the common semantic foundation that allows Digital Product Passport requirements to be implemented consistently across different organisations and software systems.
In practice, the Repository provides a shared semantic reference that different Digital Product Passport solutions can use to interpret product information consistently.
Product information rarely originates from a single source. Material data may come from suppliers, technical specifications from PLM systems, environmental information from LCA software and repair instructions from after-sales teams.
Preparing for Digital Product Passports therefore means ensuring that information created across different systems can be interpreted consistently once it becomes part of the same product dataset.
Although product-specific delegated acts are still under development, companies can already begin preparing their product data by:
For companies, the first step towards Digital Product Passport readiness is not collecting new data, but making existing product information consistent, reusable and interoperable across systems. Get in touch with our team and explore how Renoon helps companies in that process.
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