DPP AND THE EU GREEN DEAL
The Digital Product Passport (DPP) is one requirement within a much bigger set of plans that the European Union (EU) has put in place to realign industry with climate targets. Under the European Climate Law, the EU committed to reduce its net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030, and it needs plans and strategies to help achieve this target. Furthermore, the EU aims to be ‘emissions-neutral’ by 2050.
In 2020, the European Commission introduced the European Green Deal: a set of proposals for climate, energy, transport and taxation policies aimed at reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030. The European Green Deal aims to ensure:
- no net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050
- economic growth decoupled from resource use
- no person and no place left behind
Diagram (up): This is an overview of the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP) and the different regulatory actions occuring under the Sustainable Textile Strategy. These are under the EU Green Deal, which all EU member states are obliged to enforce.
The Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP)
The European Green Deal sets in stone the EU’s green transition ambitions and climate targets. Under the Green Deal umbrella, the Circular Economy Action Plan 2020 (CEAP) seeks to enhance the Deal by providing businesses with a trigger to scale up the circular economy.
The four core themes of the Circular Economy Action Plan 2020 are:
- Make sustainable products the norm in the EU
- Empower consumers
- Focus on the lifetime of products through a sectoral lens
- Ensure less waste
The CEAP 2020 is a call to action to create sustainable products, with specific chapters focused on enabling sustainable product policy actions and product value chain actions; it also encourages less waste and more customer-centric actions. To emphasize action and accountability, the CEAP 2020 outlines pivotal legislation and provides target implementation dates.
The CEAP addresses two key legislative actions for textiles:
- High levels of separate collection of textile waste by 2025 (for EU member countries)[5]
- EU Strategy for Textiles 2021
The EU Strategy for Textiles includes the laws, regulations and guidance specific to the textiles sector and textile products; including the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and within it, the requirement for each product to have a Digital Product Passport (DPP). A breakdown of the policies under the CEAP is shown int he diagram below.
Diagram above showing key policies under the Sustainable Textiles Strategy including the DPP.
The EU Data Strategy and DPP
In 2020 the European Commission introduced the EU Data Strategy with the purpose of developing ‘common European data spaces’ in strategic economic sectors and domains of public interest. The DPP and the DPP system are being devised in accordance with this Data Strategy (also part of the EU Green Deal) which means they will be built to incorporate data infrastructures and governance frameworks critical to delivering the EU Green Deal.
One of these requirements is that the DPP data will be accessible and interoperable (explained in the upcoming ‘What’ section) to facilitate the circular economy. In the case of textiles, DPP will provide data to enable product-level care, repair, and recycling for circular economy value creation.
The EU Data Strategy (and CEAP) contains legislation and regulations that support the EU’s quest for economic growth decoupled from resource use in the textile sector (and other consumer product sectors).
The role of DPP
DPPs are one facet of many regulations intended to help deliver the EU Green Deal’s aim of ‘green growth’ and net zero emissions. DPPs will help unlock the circular economy potential of textile products.
With the aim of DPPs clear, what are the impacts of textile products? We answer this question and more in this next article that delves into what the fashion and textiles industry gains from implementing Digital Product Passports.
This is an excerpt from "Unlocking DPP: The Why, What and How of Digital Product Passports." Download your copy of this playbook to get expert insights on digital product passports and how they are shaping fashion and textiles.
