Textiles were among the first product groups named in the ESPR working plan, and for good reason: the sector combines long, opaque supply chains with high volumes and low recycling rates. The delegated act that sets the exact requirements is expected in the second half of 2027, with a transition period after that. This article describes what the direction of travel already makes clear — and, more usefully, where each piece of data tends to hide inside a real textile business.
Product identification
Every passport begins with identity. You need a unique product identifier — in practice a GTIN encoded in GS1 Digital Link — plus an operator identifier for the responsible economic operator and, increasingly, facility identifiers for the sites involved in production.
Where it lives: the GTIN is usually in your ERP or PIM. Operator and facility identifiers frequently do not exist yet and must be obtained. This is a small task that surprises people by sitting on the critical path.
Material composition
Fibre content by percentage, at the level of the product and, for multi-component articles, per component. Recycled content is stated separately from virgin material, and claims about recycled content need to be substantiated rather than asserted.
Where it lives: the tech pack and the supplier’s material declaration. The trap is that composition often exists in three slightly different versions — one on the label, one in the tech pack, one in the supplier’s own system — and the passport forces you to pick one and stand behind it.
Origin and traceability
Expect country of origin at minimum, with pressure toward stage-level traceability: where the fabric was woven or knitted, where it was dyed and finished, where it was cut and sewn. The direction is clearly toward more granularity, not less.
Where it lives: purchase orders and supplier declarations, rarely in a structured form. This is the field that most often requires a supplier data-collection workflow rather than a database query.
Substances of concern
Presence of substances of concern above threshold, with enough specificity for recyclers to handle the material safely. This connects the passport to REACH and to your existing restricted substances list.
Where it lives: test reports and supplier chemical declarations, usually as PDFs in a shared drive. Passport software should let you attach and version these, not just store a yes/no flag.
Durability, care and repairability
Care instructions, expected lifetime indicators, availability of spare parts or repair services where relevant. For textiles the durability metrics are less mature than in electronics, but care and repair information is a low-cost field to populate and a high-value one for consumers.
Where it lives: care labelling specifications — already produced for the physical label, so this is mostly a copy exercise.
Circularity and end of life
Recyclability information, guidance on separating components, and instructions for correct disposal. This is the section recyclers actually open, and it is the least populated section in most early passports.
Where it lives: usually nowhere yet. It generally has to be created, by working backwards from your bill of materials.
Environmental footprint
The delegated act is expected to reference environmental impact data. The methodology question — full PEF study, simplified footprint, or supplier-declared values — is not fully settled, and honest vendors will tell you so rather than promise a number.
Where it lives: nowhere, unless you have already run an LCA. Budget for this as a separate workstream, and be sceptical of any platform claiming to produce a compliant footprint from a product name alone.
The practical sequence
Do not try to fill every field at once. A workable order is: identity first, because everything else attaches to it; then composition and origin, because those are the fields buyers ask for today; then chemicals and care, which mostly already exist somewhere; then circularity; then footprint.
Two structural warnings. First, the data you need for the first three sections lives with your suppliers, not with you — so your real project is a supplier communication project with a software component, not the reverse. Second, whatever you build should survive the delegated act changing shape, because it will. Category-agnostic data models age better than textile-specific ones.
What your buyers will ask before the law does
European brands are already sending DPP-readiness questionnaires to suppliers. They typically ask three things: can you provide structured composition and origin data per SKU, can you carry a GS1 Digital Link QR on the product, and can you keep that data updated for years after shipment.
A supplier who can answer yes to all three has a commercial advantage that arrives well before the regulatory deadline does.