From EU Requirement to Business Opportunity: Research Shows How Digital Product Passports Can Create Value

Although most representatives from the nearly 200 participating companies attended online, the venue at Sydhavnen in Aarhus was well attended. The event, Digital Product Passport: Insights from Real Customer Testing, was organised by Jonas Frich, Associate Professor at the School of Communication and Culture, Aarhus University, together with the consultancy IMPACT Commerce and Lifestyle & Design Cluster.

Jonas Frich presented research based on 12 different Digital Product Passports and the experiences of 40 customers who had used them. Drawing on the study, he identified nine key insights. Among the main findings were that companies should minimise sales-oriented elements in their DPPs, keep users within the same browser environment rather than directing them through PDFs and pop-ups, and recognise that transparency helps build trust.

Many of the company representatives attending the event came with questions for Jonas Frich.

– They were curious about the different ways other companies have implemented Digital Product Passports, he says.

Some companies explained that they face two specific challenges. The first concerns data. Developing the data infrastructure is difficult because the relevant EU legislation has not yet been fully finalised, and this is not an area where the research can provide answers.

– But there is also a smaller headache: understanding what information can create value for customers, how that information should be presented, and how transparency itself can become a valuable element. That is where our research can shed light on the issue, says Jonas Frich.

Among the participants was Sanni Fejer, Sustainability Project Responsible at the Danish design company BOLIA, who is responsible for implementing the company’s Digital Product Passport.

She found it particularly interesting that customers view the DPP as part of the overall product experience rather than simply as a regulatory requirement that companies must comply with.

– One of the key takeaways for me is that at BOLIA we need to strike a balance between ensuring that the Digital Product Passport fulfils regulatory requirements and making sure it creates value for our customers. Customers should feel encouraged to scan the passport. At the same time, we need to be highly aware that different customers are looking for different types of information. At BOLIA, we do not have just one customer segment, so the information presented in the passport must meet the needs of several different groups, says Sanni Fejer.

She also noted that the research suggests transparency itself generates trust and that customers responded positively to information such as where a product comes from. However, customers often need support in understanding information like carbon footprint figures.

– The research suggests that customers need help interpreting this type of data through explanations, comparisons and visualisations, so that they are not simply presented with a number they do not know how to relate to, she says.

Sanni Fejer is already working on the development of BOLIA’s DPP, and several of the research findings confirmed the direction the company is already taking.

– After the event, there is one sentence in particular that I will keep in mind as we prepare for the Digital Product Passport: “Brands need to make the DPP easy to spot, easy to access and, importantly, give customers a reason to scan.”

The quote comes from a report that is based in part on research conducted by Jonas Frich.

The report is available on the IMPACT Commerce website under the heading Make it visible – and worth scanning.