How it works

A passport your customer opens with a phone camera

A Digital Product Passport is a structured, machine-readable record of what a product is made of, how it was made, how to keep it in use and what to do with it at the end of its life. It is not a PDF and not an eco-label: it lives at a web address printed on the product, it is read by scanners as well as people, and it is updated for as long as the product exists.

Scan the code on the right — or open it — to land on a working passport, exactly as a shopper would.

Open the demo passport

From product to passport

  1. One identifier per product

    Each product gets a GTIN, and high-value or regulated items also get a serial number. That identifier is turned into a GS1 Digital Link — a web address of the form /01/{GTIN}/21/{SERIAL} — which is the scheme the ESPR framework recognises for connecting a physical product to its digital record.

  2. A data carrier on the product

    That address is printed as a QR code on the label, care tag, hang tag or housing. ESPR requires the carrier to be physically present on the product, its packaging or its documentation, and the data behind it to be reachable free of charge, without registration and without installing any app.

  3. The record resolves and answers

    Scanning opens the passport. The same address serves different answers to different readers: a shopper sees the public layer, an authorised inspector unlocks a second one, and commercially sensitive data is never served at all.

  4. It stays alive, and it stays provable

    Repairs, reassessments and corrections create new versions rather than overwriting the record. Every version is hashed and the hash is anchored on Arweave, so an earlier state can be shown to be unaltered instead of merely asserted — and the record outlives the seller's own systems.

What lives in each layer

One identifier, three audiences. Tiered access is built into the regulation, not a feature we invented.

Open to anyone who scans

Article 9 of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation — Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, in force since 18 July 2024 — requires this layer to be accessible free of charge, without registration and without an app. No login, no account, no gate.

Typically held here

Product identity
Name, model, category, manufacturer and place and date of manufacture
Composition
Materials, recycled content share, substances relevant to safe use and recycling
Environmental performance
Product carbon footprint (ISO 14067 methodology), water use, durability and recyclability
Use and repair
Care instructions, warranty, repair options, spare-part availability
End of life
Take-back schemes, disassembly and separation instructions, recycling routes

Which of these fields are mandatory is set per product group by a delegated act, not by the framework itself. The Commission's 2025–2030 working plan puts iron and steel, textiles (apparel first), furniture, tyres and several energy-related groups in the early waves; iron and steel and textiles are furthest along. Each act grants at least 18 months before it applies.

Unlocked for authorised parties only

ESPR sets out tiered access: part of the passport is reachable only by competent national authorities, market surveillance bodies, the Commission and other parties named in the relevant delegated act. Access rights are managed through the EU Digital Product Passport Registry, which the Commission had to establish before 19 July 2026 and which now runs alongside a separate test environment. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1778 sets its technical rules: access management, user authentication, data recording and storage.

Typically held here

Conformity
EU declaration of conformity, applicable standards, test and certification references
Substances of concern
Screening results and thresholds, with the evidence behind the public claim
Responsible operator
Legal entity placing the product on the EU market, with registration and tax identifiers
Verification
LCA methodology and dataset, assessor identity, verification date and scope
Supply chain
Production sites and processing stages behind the product

In production this layer is bound to an authenticated Registry identity, so an inspector resolves a product to its issuer rather than trusting the page in front of them. The access code used in the demo stands in for that step.

Held, but never served

ESPR is explicit that a passport must not force disclosure of commercially sensitive information or trade secrets. This data stays in the record for continuity, audit and internal use — and no view in this product renders it to a visitor.

Typically held here

Commercial terms
Supplier contracts, negotiated pricing, purchasing conditions
Cost structure
Unit cost, margin, landed cost by component
Sourcing detail
Named suppliers and volumes beyond what disclosure rules require

This is the layer manufacturers ask about first. Supply-chain transparency obligations do not mean publishing your cost base; they mean the right data reaching the right party.

Why this is becoming mandatory

Real dates only. Where a date is not fixed yet, we say so.

Practically: the data work — identifiers, material records, footprint calculations, supplier inputs — is the slow part, and it is the same work whichever act reaches your category first. That is what can be done now, before a deadline is attached to it.

Aura Passport follows the GS1 Digital Link identifier scheme and the CIRPASS-2 EU DPP core ontology, the emerging interoperability reference under ESPR. It is a readiness tool, not a certification, and does not replace legal advice on your own obligations. No delegated act has been published for most product categories yet, so field mappings are updated as each one is finalised. Primary sources: European Commission — Digital Product Passport, Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, Regulation (EU) 2023/1542.

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