Digital Product Passports: a blueprint for progress in EU and UK construction – a comprehensive view

The construction industry is about to face a new set of regulations aiming at making sustainable products the norm in the EU and boosting circular business models. One aspect of this is the introduction of mandatory Digital Product Passports, known in the industry as DPPs. Manufacturers will need to start preparing.

ESPR: leading the way

If you aren’t already up to date on the new regulations, perhaps the most important one to be aware of is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which came into force in June 2024. In essence, the ESPR establishes comprehensive requirements for the mandatory use of Digital Product Passports (DPPs) for various products in the EU market. These passports will be implemented gradually, prioritising different products based on their environmental impact and potential for improvement.

In a few years, EU manufacturers will be required to produce DPPs for their products. These digital identities will contain information not only about the product’s characteristics, such as its dimensions. The DPPs will also ensure new ecodesign requirements aimed at enhancing products’ durability, reliability, reusability, and more, while maintaining performance, safety, reducing carbon and environmental footprints.

CPR: unified rules for enhanced construction practices

Alongside this is the revised Construction Products Regulation (CPR). The aim of the CPR is to enhance standardisation and market surveillance while reducing the administrative burden by introducing DPPs in line with the ESPR. The revised CPR aims to align its objectives more closely with the EU Green Deal and the overall strive towards a circular economy.

This regulation intends to provide the construction industry with a clear and unified set of rules, simplifying compliance for manufacturers and promoting sustainable practices. By requiring manufacturers to generate a single set of comprehensive data that accompanies a product throughout its lifecycle, the CPR will facilitate better traceability and transparency.

The integration of circular economy principles within the CPR supports the transition to more sustainable construction practices, fostering innovation and competitiveness in the EU construction sector.

What will change?

As a manufacturer, you will already be familiar with the need to issue a Declaration of Performance for products (DoP). These have been mandatory since 2011 and usually consist of a document in PDF format, containing information about a product’s characteristics. Under the new rules, however, these declarations will no longer be sufficient.

According to the new CPR, however, the DoP has to be now accompanied by a Declaration of Conformity, forming a combined Declaration of Performance and Conformity (DoPC).  Notably, environmental information will from now on be required in DoPC, starting with the most notable one – climate change effects or the global warming potential.

One key aspect of the new rules is the introduction of the requirement to issue a DPP for construction products, whose digital dataset is the DoPC, based on a common data template. This dataset will need to be stored in a system, currently subject of a feasibility study, and this dataset must be both machine-readable and interpretable.

The exact position of the UK in the light of Europe’s adoption of the EU CPR revision and ESPR after 2025 is still to be finalised, but the likelihood is that it will be in the UK construction industry’s interest to conform with these harmonised standards. Certainly, for any UK manufacturers exporting to the EU, it will be essential to be able to provide data in the new required format and to satisfy the harmonised standards.

New possibilities

Discussions taking place around the revised CPR indicate that the most effective route to ensure a common approach and format for the digital DoPC will be the introduction of a European data dictionary for the construction industry, such as Define’s European data dictionary. This will make it possible to introduce a common digital language between countries, ensuring that companies working across borders are using the same standardised data framework.

How will DPPs help?

Standardised, digitised data will make it far easier to conduct the “building lifecycle assessments” that are now considered essential to achieving net zero carbon targets in the construction industry. It will also make tracking products infinitely more efficient. Trying to keep tabs on a multitude of PDF documents for a variety of different building parts is a full-time job – full digitisation will save hours of labour throughout the construction supply chain.

A set of harmonised standards that extends across the continent of Europe as well as the EU economic zone will improve building quality and boost confidence within the sector. The Digital Product Passport has the potential to do what its name suggests – to reduce trade barriers, smoothing the flow of products and information about them across the continent and giving the construction industry the boost it so urgently needs.

The changes are coming, and they represent a challenge but also an opportunity for us as a sector. We just need to get ready – fast.