Quick answer: A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a digital identity record for a physical product that carries its sustainability, materials, and traceability data across the supply chain. The European Union is phasing DPPs in under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). Avery Dennison’s atma.io platform joined the EU-funded CIRPASS consortium in 2022 to help shape how those passports are built and deployed.
Updated 07/17/2026. By Jake Claver. Educational content, not investment advice.
Most of the crypto conversation is about trading. This is not that story. The Digital Product Passport is about attaching a durable, auditable record to a real physical item: a jacket, a battery, a phone. The record is meant to follow the product through manufacture, sale, repair, resale, and recycling. Below is what the passport actually is, the EU rules that require it, and where a real company (Avery Dennison) and a specific ledger (Hedera) come into the picture.
What a Digital Product Passport is
The European Commission describes the DPP as “a digital identity card for products, components, and materials, which will store relevant information to support products’ sustainability, promote their circularity and strengthen legal compliance.” It is introduced through the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which entered into force on 18 July 2024.
In practice a DPP links a physical item to a data carrier, such as a QR code or RFID tag, that resolves to a record of where the product came from, what it is made of, how much recycled content it contains, and how to repair or recycle it. The goal is traceability and transparency along the full value chain, not a marketing label.
What CIRPASS is, and Avery Dennison’s role
CIRPASS is the EU-funded project that prepared the groundwork for standards-based Digital Product Passports. According to the CIRPASS project, the consortium of 31 partners is “Funded by the European Commission under the Digital Europe Programme” and was set up to prepare for “piloting and deployment of a standards-based Digital Product Passport (DPP) aligned with the requirements of the Proposal for Ecodesign for Sustainable Product Regulations (ESPR),” with an initial focus on electronics, batteries, and textiles.
Avery Dennison’s atma.io platform joined that consortium. Its own CIRPASS ecosystem page says atma.io joined in 2022, and quotes Max Winograd, VP of Digital Solutions, on the aim to “create standards-based DPP prototypes and an implementation blueprint for deploying an interoperable digital product passport sustainably and at scale.” The follow-on project, CIRPASS-2, runs from May 2024 to April 2027 and expands into tyres and construction materials alongside textiles and electronics.
The rules: ESPR and the 2027 battery passport deadline
The ESPR is a framework regulation: it sets the structure, and product-specific rules are added over time. In April 2025 the Commission adopted its first ESPR Working Plan for 2025 to 2030, naming priority product groups. The clearest near-term deadline sits in the EU Batteries Regulation: from 18 February 2027, a digital battery passport becomes mandatory. Every industrial battery above a set capacity and all electric-vehicle batteries must carry a passport recording material sourcing, carbon footprint, recycled-material percentages, durability, and recycling guidance.
That battery deadline is why so much early DPP work centers on EV and industrial batteries: it is the first place the rule bites, with textiles and electronics following.
Where the ledger comes in: atma.io on Hedera
This is a separate claim from the CIRPASS work, and worth keeping separate. Avery Dennison also announced that its atma.io connected product cloud would use the Hedera network to account for carbon emissions at the item level. At the time of that announcement, atma.io reported 22 billion items managed on the platform, with carbon-emission tokens launching in June 2022, using Hedera’s Consensus Service, Token Service, and the open-source Guardian ESG tool.
The connection to the DPP story is architectural, not promotional: a passport needs a trustworthy record, and a distributed ledger is one way to make item-level entries auditable. The atma.io DPP page now describes a ReadyDPP service and reports 28-plus billion unique items registered on its cloud. Carbon accounting and DPP compliance are related use cases, but they are not the same regulatory requirement, and the ledger is an implementation choice rather than something the ESPR mandates.
Why this matters
For anyone selling physical goods into the EU, the DPP is becoming a compliance requirement, not an option. Batteries lead in 2027, and textiles and electronics are close behind. For the blockchain conversation, the DPP is a concrete example of a ledger being used for provenance and audit rather than speculation: the value is a record you can check, tied to a real object. That is a narrower and more testable claim than most crypto marketing, which is exactly why it is worth understanding on its own terms.
Common questions
What is a Digital Product Passport (DPP)?
A Digital Product Passport is a digital identity record for a physical product that stores its sustainability, materials, and traceability information. The European Commission calls it a digital identity card for products, components, and materials, accessed through a data carrier such as a QR code or RFID tag.
When does the EU Digital Product Passport become mandatory?
The ESPR framework entered into force on 18 July 2024, and product-specific rules are added over time. The clearest deadline is for batteries: from 18 February 2027, a digital battery passport becomes mandatory for EV and industrial batteries, with textiles and electronics following.
What is CIRPASS?
CIRPASS is an EU-funded consortium set up to prepare standards-based Digital Product Passports aligned with the ESPR, with an initial focus on electronics, batteries, and textiles. It is funded under the European Commission’s Digital Europe Programme, and its follow-on, CIRPASS-2, runs from May 2024 to April 2027.
What is Avery Dennison’s atma.io?
atma.io is Avery Dennison’s connected product cloud, a platform that gives physical items unique digital identities and manages their data. It joined the CIRPASS consortium in 2022 and offers a ReadyDPP service, and it reports tens of billions of unique items registered on the platform.
Does a Digital Product Passport require blockchain?
No. The ESPR does not require any specific technology. A distributed ledger such as Hedera is one implementation choice for making records auditable, and Avery Dennison uses Hedera for item-level carbon accounting, but that is separate from the DPP compliance requirement itself.
This content is educational only. It is not tax, legal, or investment advice. Check primary sources and speak with a qualified professional before making financial decisions.
