Eu Digital Product Passport: What textile manufacturers must prepare for now

As the European Union moves toward mandatory Digital Product Passports (DPP) for textiles, the global apparel industry is entering a new era of traceability, transparency, and digital transformation. From production data and material sourcing to recycling information and compliance tracking, DPP will soon become essential for every textile product entering the European market. In this exclusive interview, Jan Leyssens, CEO and Founder of Insys, explains how the company’s advanced textile software solutions are already helping brands and manufacturers prepare for the upcoming regulation. He discusses QR-code-based product passports, centralized data systems, supply chain integration, and what Bangladesh’s exporters must do to stay competitive in the EU market.

TexSPACE Today: Tell us about insys and what the company does

We are a Belgian company, and for already some long time on the market for software to assist the whole development and production process in the textile industry. We have all the information about the products meaning also the information needed for production, the information about cost, prices, and so on. That information is already there.

TexSPACE Today: So when the DPP requirement came up, were you starting from scratch?

Not at all. Because we have all the information in the system, we can automatically generate a digital passport  which is a QR code. It can be scanned by consumers, but also by other people who are involved. The government can also scan it to see where the garment was produced, and other information about recycling. We already have much more information than what will be needed for the DPP. Even information which is only needed in production, we have that there too. Part of the information will be made available to the public through the DPP.

We already have much more information than what will be needed for the DPP. Even information which is only needed in production, we have that there too.

TexSPACE Today: What will the DPP actually contain? How much detail can it hold?

It can be on three levels of detail. You have unique information for every product. You can also give more information about when it was produced, the production batch. And you can even give every individual piece a number then you can exactly trace when the quality control was done, for example, and when it was sold in the shop. Not only the mandatory information, but also more information about commercial details or information about recycling and so on. The number range and the information range will be much longer than what you can do with barcodes that is why a QR code is used. You can store much more information in a QR code than in a barcode.

TexSPACE Today: When does DPP become mandatory? What is the actual timeline?

The final specifications will be defined next year 2027. Then there is a period of 18 months before it will be mandatory for all products available on the European market. So normally the final specifications will be next year, and then somewhere end of 2028 or beginning of 2029 it will be mandatory in the European Union. That is the actual status. And it also applies to products which are exported to the European Union imported into the union must also have this digital passport.

TexSPACE Today: How does it work in practice for a brand producing outside the eu and in bangladesh, for example?

In fact, the external manufacturers if they have a system can connect and send the information to our software, and we send back the registered digital passport. We can then generate it, which can be printed in the labels. In this way we can do the registration of all the information which will be mandatory in the European Union. Every supplier will have their unique identification code. We are able to work with different brands, different suppliers, all centralized in a central storage. The brands can send over a production order where they are producing a particular style, send the information, and we generate DPP codes for them.

TexSPACE Today: Is there a cost structure similar to barcodes today?

The concept is a little bit similar to the EIN code where you have to reserve a certain number of codes, and per code there is a small cost. But this is very, very small, depending on the number of DPPs you need. Like now for the EIN codes, you also have to reserve your numbers. With the EIN code, the barcode ones which are registered – they have the country of origin and the producer, but there you are only limited to 13 numbers. In the DPP, the number range and the information range will be much longer.

TexSPACE Today: What is your message to brands and manufacturers who have not started yet?

Important is that you have all your information centralized in a system, in order to make it available. There are quite a lot of people also the smaller brands who are starting up to be ready, to align their information. We can assist, and also integrate with their systems. That is what we specialize in. We will do some information sessions about the DPP. We have some customers who are producing in Bangladesh, and we can share it as an example with other customers who are using it. We can share it with the market in Bangladesh.