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Digital Product Passports have lift-off: Prepare for fashion supply chain visibility

Change is sweeping through the apparel industry. Rapid adoption of Digital Product Passports will help brands manage the change and be ready for incoming sustainability laws.

Governments around the world are passing legislation to drive more sustainable apparel production and consumption models. Digital technology is a key enabler, and it’s expected that Digital Product Passports (DPPs) will become essential in meeting legal requirements to provide detailed product and supply chain data about individual garments.

A Digital Product Passport (DPP), as defined by the EU, is “an environmental policy instrument that aims to improve product circularity by utilizing the power of digital to collect, organize, and store information in a secure way”. To prepare for a future when supply chain visibility will be mandatory, fashion brands are beginning to adopt DPPs which hold raw material and provenance data on individual products that can be shared across entire value chains. The aim is that stakeholders, including consumers, will have a better understanding of the products they use, and their environmental impact.

Sustainability laws on the horizon

Change must happen. Over 15 kilograms of textile waste is generated per person each year in Europe, according to McKinsey. In America alone, an estimated 11.3 million tons of textile waste ends up in landfills each year, according to Earth.org.

New legislation aims to tackle this huge problem of waste head on, by enforcing transparency, accountability and circularity.

France has moved first. The French Decree 2022-748 AGEC (Anti-Waste for a Circular Economy Law) came into force at the start of the year for apparel brands with an annual turnover above 50m Euros and at least 25,000 units. This will be phased in for smaller companies during 2024 and 2025.

Pursuant to this legislation, relevant producers, importers, and dealers of a wide range of products intended for consumers (including large fashion brands) must now make information regarding the raw materials used and the green credentials of a product available to consumers at the point of sale, and in an electronic format accessible post purchase.

This includes information regarding the product’s recyclability, traceability of textiles, and the presence of plastic microfibres (when the proportion by mass of synthetic fibers is greater than 50%). Certain environmental claims such as ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘biodegradable’ are banned from product information.

The French government’s proactive stance on product traceability is a sign of things to come in Europe and beyond.

The EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles sets out the vision and concrete actions aimed to ensure that by 2030, textile products placed on the EU market are designed to be durable and recyclable, made as much as possible of recycled fibers, free of hazardous substances and produced in respect of social rights and the environment. Avery Dennison’s Missing Billions report states that durability of garments was ranked by almost half of global consumers (48%) as a top five important factor affecting purchase in retail segments.

Specifically, the EU intends to implement DPPs for textile products, possibly by as early as 2025, with the goal of tracking the content and manufacturing journey of a product.

The US is also making headway on legal changes through California’s Senate Bill 62, the New York Fashion Act, and the proposed Fashioning Accountability and Building Real Institutional Change Act (known as the Fabric Act).

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New transparency mandates unlock a wealth of opportunity

Aiming to push through digital passport laws for apparel, EU legislators are setting a benchmark for transparent and connected ways for businesses everywhere to operate.

Avery Dennison’s atma.io has joined the EU’s CIRPASS consortium. CIRPASS aims to prepare the ground for the gradual piloting and deployment of the DPPs from 2023 onwards, across multiple industries, including textiles.

Our Digital Solutions are already being used by fashion brands keen to optimize supply chain visibility and help them manage compliance with new laws as they go live.

Having item-level lifecycle data readily available for every product will completely transform a fashion brand’s supply chain visibility. Here are just a few supply chain benefits to fashion brands when using DPPs:

  • Brands can enable consumers to make better-informed decisions when buying a product, using stored data to prolong its life, as well as giving it a second life.

  • Product information can be traced right back to raw materials, including authenticity, place of origin, date and place of manufacture which will be needed to substantiate eco-claims and can help meet legal compliance.

  • Digital ID technology like RFID, NFC, QR codes, together with the AI capabilities of a connected product cloud like atma.io can give a real-time picture of inventory levels at locations all over the globe.

  • The guesswork can be taken out of sourcing, manufacturing and distribution so that consumer demand can be met without the risk of excessive wastage caused by overproduction.

  • Inventory changes can be registered in real time, helping to drive efficiency and reduce waste.

  • A data trail can be used to create incredibly agile and precise feedback loops so things like upstream quality issues can be remedied almost instantly.

  • Unwanted garments can be easily processed by sorters and textile recyclers if those agencies have access to the correct composition and raw material data via the DPP, enabling the reuse stage of the circularity loop.

Digitally connected products are a game-changer for everything from collaboration through to customer satisfaction, product development, supply chain efficiency, compliance and circularity. As mass garment recycling takes off, material composition data will be essential to help sorters and recycling specialists carry out their work. Avery Dennison recently invested in a textile recycling company, Circ, to help fund the build and engineering requirements for Circ’s industrial-scale recycling plants.

Circ’s game-changing textile recycling technology keeps materials in constant play, making new clothes out of old and reducing waste. Avery Dennison’s digital identification technologies and atma.io connected product cloud will provide the textile composition and supply chain data needed by fashion brands using the Circ facilities to recycle their textiles.

At Avery Dennison, we’re confident the infrastructure needed for garment recycling will be built. We’re also excited by the world of opportunities offered by IoT technologies such as DPPs. Our Digital Solutions are poised to support fashion brands and retailers with compliance, customer engagement, supply chain efficiency and ultimately, circularity.