The EU's proposed Digital Product Passport is intended to strengthen sustainability and transparency by making data on materials, repairability and environmental impact visible across a product's entire lifecycle. For the furniture industry, it represents a potentially important step towards a more circular economy, at least in principle.
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In practice, however, significant uncertainties remain. Although the Digital Product Passport has been agreed under the Ecodesign Regulation, the detail that matters most to manufacturers has yet to be defined. Product-specific rules are still pending, and for furniture and mattresses in particular there is currently no clarity on which data points will ultimately be mandatory. At the same time, the passport is expected to be referenced across several other EU regulatory frameworks, many of which are still evolving.
Enforcement is another major concern. Market surveillance authorities are already under pressure, and without robust controls and tamper-proof systems, there is a risk that imported products will not be held to the same standards. This could place European manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage.
For many businesses, especially small and medium-sized manufacturers, the costs and organisational demands of compliance could be significant. Questions also remain around the protection of sensitive commercial data and growing dependencies within global supply chains.
The Digital Product Passport could become a valuable tool for the interiors sector. Its success, however, will depend on whether implementation is practical, fairly enforced and proportionate, ensuring sustainability goals do not become an added competitive burden.
Source: LinkedIn.
