In the Age of Information, customers are growing more interested in understanding the full story behind their purchases than ever before. The Harvard Business Review discovered consumer concerns about sustainability are rising, and buyers are looking to make sure their purchases are ethical, practical, and authentic. 

One way to easily and conveniently address the concerns on consumers’ minds is the digital product passport (DPP). The DPP generally shows up on your garment’s care label as a QR code. When your customers scan the code, they access a portal of rich information about the garment. From care instructions to sustainability info, customers have access to far deeper knowledge about their clothing than ever before. 

Let’s dive into the basics of DPP and learn how your brand can leverage it.

What is DPP?

The digital product passport is a way for manufacturers to communicate directly with their customers through their care label. The DPP can include information about:

• The product (like the material the garment is made from)
• Care instructions
• Origin 
• Supply chain journey
• Sustainability certifications held by the company
• Information on the environmental impact of the garment
• The history of the product, including prior owners
• Warranty information
• Authentication
• Instructions about returns or exchanges

The DPP will be an important method for sharing information about sustainable manufacturing practices, and avoiding Greenwashing claims. This is extremely important — but the tool can do so much more than that.

DPP Mandates

As customers grow more and more interested in sustainability, calls for mandated DPPs have fit into green initiatives worldwide. The European Green Deal (EGD) has a number of plans that encourage the proliferation of the DPP, including the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP). Passed in 2020, the CEAP includes several items that relate to the DPP, encouraging transparency and sustainable manufacturing practices. 

Though there are no present mandates, they don’t appear to be far off. In fact, some suspect DPP mandates to hit the European Union between 2026 to 2030, and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPRs) are coming to the USA soon. Rather than scrambling to stay on top of emerging mandates, get ahead of the curve and start including DPPs in your labels now.

How can you leverage your digital product passport?

The emphasis of the DPP until recently has been exclusively focused on sustainability. But at Charming Trim, we believe the passport has the potential to do so much more for your company and your customers. We believe the basic, humble care label can be a full digital encyclopedia for your customers. We advocate for DPPs that include:

Facts

The digital product passport is a great place to share basics about your garment or product. Include fabric types, warranty information, authentication, and any other relevant information your customer may want to understand about the garment before and after they take it home.

Provenance

In line with both mandates and growing customer interest in learning their products’ journey, you can provide details about the place of origin of the garment, as well as all the stops along the way. Sharing a transparent product journey is a great way to communicate ethical and sustainable product creation to your buyers.

Care

Share in-depth care instructions through your DPP. Rather than just including generic, vague symbols, you can include full instructions about the best ways to take care of your garment. Provide temperatures for washing, recommendations for drying, and instructions on ironing, steaming, and overall care. 

Circularity

Circularity goes hand-in-hand with sustainability, and is the practice of “closing the loop” on product waste. Sharing information about material circularity means explaining the ways 1) raw materials are reused and 2) waste is reduced. For buyers who are interested in sustainability, and for companies who take care to ensure their products are made with sustainable practices, providing information about circularity is a great use of the DPP. 

The DPP is also a great way to address the End Of Life of the garment so that it can easily be resold (making the DPP an important component in making a second Profit from the garment) and recycled (so your brand goes beyond profiting on materials used and contributes to the better good for sustainability’s sake).

Direct communication with customers

Finally, the DPP is a great place to tell your story directly to your customers. Rather than sharing exclusively facts and figures, the DPP can be an interface for communicating your brand ethos with your buyers. Whether they’re purchasing the garment in-store or online, the DPP provides the Brick ‘n Mortar experience of engaging deeply with your brand.

To learn more about how and why tags should be modernized with QR codes and DPPs, check out this short informational video from AAFA. As a sponsor of AAFA, we’re strong supporters of their “Cut the Tape” digital label proposals. 

Charming.Digi powered by TAPPR 

At Charming Trim, we offer Brands and Retailers the ability to build a DPP experience through Charming.Digi. Charming.Digi is a SaaS platform, developed in association with TAPPR, that allows brands to deliver both product information and product experiences to their customers. Charming.Digi enables our customers to build custom DPPs for their products that share product information, sustainability details, and valuable experiences within each and every garment. 

And very importantly — Charming.Digi allows companies to maintain their data.  After all: YOUR DATA SHOULD REMAIN YOUR DATA!

And — you can do all this with potentially using less material, as the DPP is DIGITAL.  The amount of information that needs to be actually written on the label is dramatically reduced, so you do not need to insert a multi-language “book” of small print to your customer.

To learn more about Charming.Digi, check out our web page. We’re excited to get started.