scienceACTIVE RESEARCH STUDY

Digital Product Passports and Reverse Logistics Viability in Industrial Value Chains

Architectures for cross-tier material provenance tracking, data governance, and regulatory compliance.

Funding & GovernanceIndustrial Digital Transition Council
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Research Context & Scope

Focuses on the implementation challenges of EU Digital Product Passport (DPP) requirements across complex tier-2 and tier-3 industrial suppliers. We examine interoperable data protocols, intellectual property protection in bill-of-materials disclosures, and the cost of compliance for mid-market suppliers.

Objectives & Empirical Hypotheses

Primary Objectives
  • Map data architectures supporting verifiable provenance without exposing proprietary supplier formulas.
  • Evaluate supplier readiness across battery, textile, and machinery manufacturing sectors.
Guiding Research Questions
  • “How can decentralized identity protocols preserve supplier confidentiality in mandated disclosures?”
  • “What is the total cost of compliance for tier-2 SME manufacturers under EU DPP regulations?”

Methodology & Empirical Architecture

Consortium field pilots with 8 manufacturing networks, combined with architectural software simulation and cross-border regulatory audit comparisons.

Key Empirical Findingsinsights

01

Data harmonization across legacy ERP schemas represents 72% of total DPP adoption cost, eclipsing physical tagging hardware.

02

Decentralized zero-knowledge proofs enable tier-2 suppliers to prove chemical compliance without revealing exact component formulations.

Policy Directives & Enterprise Outcomespolicy

check_circleReference architecture adopted by 8 Nordic machinery consortia.
check_circleValidation of open-source schema recommendations with European standards bodies.

Research Documents & Open Datasetsdownload_for_offline

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Technical Reference Architecture & Implementation Guide

PDF • 2.4 MB
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Scholarly Outputs & Papers

All Publications →
Open Access • CC BY 4.0Sustainability & Responsible BusinessRESEARCH REPORT

Digital Product Passports in Industrial Value Chains: Architecture, Governance and Adoption Barriers

Prof. Eleanor Vance, Dr. Marcus Thorne•Published 2025•CISR Research Report Series

The European Union’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) establishes Digital Product Passports (DPPs) as mandatory compliance mechanisms. This research report details architectural frameworks for decentralized material tracking, analyzes data governance models, and documents implementation costs across 45 mid-market European suppliers in industrial machinery and textiles.

DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.4891024
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