The product tells its story: with blockchain and the digital passport, companies gain in transparency

For companies, it is not just a matter of 'fulfilling' an obligation, but of exploiting the strategic opportunity of transparency towards the consumer in the context of sustainability and circularity. The availability of reliable and certifiable data along the entire product life cycle becomes a competitive factor: it reduces the risks of greenwashing, improves supply chain management, facilitates access to regulated markets and opens up new forms of relationships with customers and partners. In this sense, the 'passport' is transforming from an obligation into an infrastructure of trust.

This is where blockchain comes in, not as a technological fad but as a silent enabler, already christened by the Economist as the 'Trust Machine'. Its function is to ensure that the data entered into the digital passport is verifiable, unalterable and attributable with certainty to the person who produced it. It is not necessary for all information to be public: hybrid models make it possible to make what customers and authorities need transparent, while keeping sensitive business data confidential.

Early applications already show how this approach can work on a large scale. In fashion, one of the pioneering sectors, digital passports are used to trace the origin of materials, certify production conditions and support the second-hand and recycling market. A garment is no longer a 'dumb' object, but an information node that continues to produce value after sale.

Since 2025, the Digital Product Passport has started to concretely affect some key industries, chosen for their environmental impact and the complexity of their supply chains. In particular, the textile and fashion sector was the first to be extensively involved, also due to consumer pressure and the spread of re-sale.

But also of interest are batteries, particularly for electric vehicles, where traceability and performance over time are essential, electronics and household appliances, with a focus on repairability, durability and waste management, and packaging, increasingly at the centre of circular economy policies. In these areas, the Digital Passport Product is not just a digital label, but an operational tool linking production, logistics, service and end-of-life.

In the coming years, the perimeter will widen. Sectors such as furniture, construction, chemicals, food processing and mechanics are set to be progressively included. For many industrial companies, this means radically rethinking product data management: no longer static documents, but continuous, interoperable and verifiable information flows.

This is where the 'digital passport' intersects with broader themes such as Industry 5.0, IoT and artificial intelligence. Sensors along the supply chain can automatically feed the passport with up-to-date data; AI algorithms can analyse it to improve design or reduce waste; the blockchain ensures that all this is done in a reliable, certified and immutable way.

For the most advanced companies, transparency is no longer a cost, but a strategic lever. Being able to demonstrate - data in hand - how a product was made, with what materials and what impacts, becomes a distinctive element in international markets, especially in Europe.

The Digital Product Passport also enables better dialogue with regulators, investors and end customers. In a context where ESG metrics weigh ever more heavily, the availability of certified data reduces uncertainty and strengthens credibility. And it opens the way to new business models: evolved after-sales services, predictive maintenance, product life extension, more structured secondary markets.

The real challenge, however, is not technical. It is cultural and organisational. Implementing a Digital Product Passport means coordinating suppliers, subcontractors, logistics partners and distributors, often spread across several countries, and thus investing in digital skills, data governance and system interoperability.

But the message coming from Europe is clear: transparency is no longer optional. Companies that are now starting to experiment, exploiting technologies such as blockchain to build trustworthy digital passports, are not just anticipating a norm. They are preparing the ground for competing in an economy where the value is no longer just in the product, but in the story that product is able to tell.