The Digital Product Passport is about to become mandatory for European manufacturing companies. The requirement details have been established by the European Commission, and businesses will need to comply in the coming months. But what does this mean for fashion companies? And more importantly, how can you prepare without incurring costly, last-minute projects?
ModaSuite365 offers a concrete solution: a fashion ERP already structured to manage the data that the DPP will require. Not about adding new modules or external platforms, but rather leveraging a system that has always collected and organized the right information.
What is the Digital Product Passport and why is it important
The Digital Product Passport is a tool that tracks a product's entire lifecycle. Introduced under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which came into force in July 2024, the DPP represents a profound shift in how fashion products are documented.
In practice, every item sold in the European Union will need to have a digital identifier accessible via QR code or NFC tag. This will allow consumers, authorities, and supply chain operators to access detailed information about materials, suppliers, production processes, and environmental impact.
The textile sector has been placed at the top of the priority list for the 2025-2030 period, with a delegated act expected in 2027. Once the new rules are adopted, brands will have at least 18 months before they become operational, which means the 2025-2027 period is the critical window for preparation.
The problem of fragmented data
The main challenge for many fashion companies isn't technical, but organizational. The Digital Product Passport requires consistent, structured, and verifiable data. This data already exists within companies, but it's distributed across different systems: Excel files for bills of materials, spreadsheets for materials, emails with suppliers, PDF documents for certifications.
When the time comes to create the DPP, reconstructing this history becomes complex, costly, and error-prone. Many companies find themselves having to retrace years of production to recover information that should have been tracked continuously.
ModaSuite365 flips this approach: the data needed for the DPP is already present in the ERP because it's part of the company's normal operational management. From product technical sheets to bills of materials, from suppliers to production processes, everything is already connected and tracked.
How ModaSuite365 prepares companies for the Digital Product Passport
ModaSuite365 adopts a pragmatic approach to the DPP, based on three fundamental pillars.
Data structure already aligned with requirements
A vertical ERP for fashion naturally collects the information that the Digital Product Passport will require. ModaSuite365 natively manages:
- Material composition and fiber percentages
- Raw material origin and reference suppliers
- Production phases and facilities involved
- Accessory components and their specifications
- Certifications and regulatory compliance
- Seasonality and collections
This information isn't collected "in anticipation of the DPP," but is part of the normal operational workflow. This means companies already operating on ModaSuite365 don't need to reconstruct anything: their product history is already tracked.
Integrated end-to-end traceability
The Digital Product Passport can capture and verify fiber composition, fabric origin, and production phases, making key sustainability and production data traceable and verifiable throughout the product's entire lifecycle.
ModaSuite365 ensures this traceability by maintaining the connection between what is designed by the style team, what is produced, what is sold, and what is declared. There's no separation between departments: everyone works on the same system, with the same data.
This approach drastically reduces the risk of inconsistencies. When a product is sold with an associated DPP, the information contained truly reflects the production journey, not a post-hoc reconstruction.
No extraordinary investment required
For companies already operating on ModaSuite365, the Digital Product Passport will not require separate projects or extraordinary investments. There's no need for:
- Data migration projects
- Duplication of information on parallel systems
- Teams dedicated to retroactive data collection
The ERP is already ready. When regulations are finalized and technical requirements are clear, ModaSuite365 will be able to extend existing functionalities to generate and manage Digital Product Passports natively.
Preparing today for tomorrow's DPP
The collections being worked on today will be on the market when the DPP becomes fully operational. This is a fundamental point: it's not just about complying with future regulations, but about correctly structuring the data of products that will be sold when digital traceability becomes mandatory.
Those already using ModaSuite365 have a significant competitive advantage: every product entered into the system is tracked with information that will become regulatory requirements. No need to scramble or launch urgent last-minute projects.
Immediate operational benefits
Beyond regulatory preparation, having a system already structured for the DPP offers concrete operational benefits:
- Greater control over the supply chain and suppliers
- Reduction of errors related to fragmented or duplicated data
- Ability to respond quickly to traceability requests from customers or partners
- Solid foundation for sustainability projects and environmental reporting
- Opportunity to leverage transparency as a distinctive brand element
Conclusions
The Digital Product Passport is an inevitable transformation for the European fashion sector. It's no longer a question of "if," but "when" and "how." Companies currently working with fragmented data and non-integrated systems will have to face costly and complex projects to comply.
ModaSuite365 doesn't replace the DPP platform, but represents its data foundation. As a vertical fashion ERP, it organizes and maintains updated product information that is then transmitted to solutions like Anima or SYSID, making Digital Product Passport adoption a natural evolution rather than a separate initiative.
When regulations become final and operational, those using ModaSuite365 won't have to chase change. They'll already be ready, with years of tracked, verifiable data ready to be transformed into Digital Product Passports.
Preparing today means avoiding tomorrow's urgency. And in fashion, as always, those who anticipate the times win.
