Global resource extraction has surged past 100 billion tons annually, up from 30 billion in 1970. The extraction and processing of materials contribute to around 50% of global climate impacts and over 90% of biodiversity loss and water loss. At Nokia, we see climate, biodiversity and geodiversity as deeply connected and vital for both life and responsible business. A circular economy, as highlighted in the 2024 Circularity Gap Report, could cut material extraction by a third, help to restore the overshoot of planetary boundaries and enhance sovereignty. Digital technologies play a fundamental role in enabling this transition through innovation, de-materialization and enhanced transparency.

One of the major challenges in shifting to a circular economy is value chain transparency. Standardized data collection and sharing mechanisms are crucial for enabling organizations, consumers and circular economy actors in the value chain like repairers, recyclers and refurbishers to make informed choices, thereby improving the sustainability and circularity of products. A key initiative addressing this issue is the so-called Digital Product Passport (DPP).

Recently the European Commission's (EC) has published and adopted the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) and Energy Labelling working plan 2025-2030. This working plan lists the products to be prioritized for implementing ESPR and gives indicative timelines for adoption for ESPR and DPP.

What is a Digital Product Passport?

DPP is a tool designed to collect and share product and value chain data among key economic actors, including suppliers, consumers, repairers, recyclers, and market authorities, in an efficient and secure manner. Think of it as a digital identity card of a product. DPP is not only specific to ICT products, under ESPR and other relevant product specific regulations it will be gradually implemented to almost all the products sold in EU including textiles, furniture, tyres, mattresses, household appliances and consumer goods. Each product must be uniquely linked to a DPP, with access granted via a unique product identifier embedded in a data carrier (e.g., QR code). This data carrier must be physically present on the product, its packaging, or accompanying documentation if direct application is not feasible. Access to DPP data will follow a need-to-know basis, ensuring that certain information remains restricted to relevant stakeholders (e.g., market authorities). Importantly, DPP data will not be stored in any centralized EU repository but will instead be managed through a decentralized approach, with data custody residing with product producers or DPP service providers. To ensure interoperability and usability, all information included in the DPP must adhere to open standards, be machine-readable, structured, and searchable. The figure below provides a high-level representation of a digital product passport.

The implementation of DPP offers several advantages:

• Showcasing product sustainability credentials, fostering trust with environmentally conscious consumers and businesses for responsible procurement.
• Facilitating compliance by providing structured regulatory information in an easily accessible format.
• Improving traceability of product history, streamlining information exchange across value chain, and allowing circular economy actors such as repairers, refurbishers and recyclers to have easy and quick access to relevant information.
• Enabling data-driven decision-making in different situations.

For our industry, the ICT network infrastructure products, the “ESPR working plan 2025-2030” does not provide any specific indicative timeline for adoption, however it states that ICT products are included in the first working plan (2025-2030). Based on earlier interactions with the regulators and industry experts and EU sectorial priorities, the expected DPP adoption for ICT network infrastructure products is around 2030, which coincides with the rollout of 6G networks. Therefore, 6G network hardware products could be the first generations of ICT network products to have a DPP when placed in the EU market. 

Realizing open and harmonized standards

We are actively engaged in ICT-specific standardization efforts within forums such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). We contribute to DPP standardization efforts focusing on environmental and circularity aspects while collaborating with industry partners and regulatory bodies. Notably, we have played a key role in developing two ITU-T standards for DPP:

• ITU-T L.1070: Published in 2023, this standard provides an overview of opportunities to integrate sustainability-related information, particularly regarding circularity and transparency, into DPP for ICT products.
• ITU-T L.1071: Published at the end of 2024, this standard defines an information model to present ICT product sustainability and circularity data requirements from existing standards in a structured digital format, enabling comparisons and alignment with the requirements for different relevant standards.

These ITU-T standards complement the European DPP initiative and align with global frameworks such as the United Nations Transparency Protocol (UNTP) Digital Product Passport.  

Additional DPP standardization efforts are currently underway in various standardization forums, focusing on areas that are not specific to ICT products:

• The European standardization body CEN and CENELEC in Joint Technical Committee 24 are together with ETSI addressing technical aspects of DPP system including data exchange, carrier, format, security, privacy, authentication, storage and access right management. 
• Last month, ISO and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) launched a joint initiative to develop a standardized Digital Product Passport (DPP) framework. This effort complements the recently published ISO product circularity data sheet, which can be useful for digitized product circularity information sharing and documentation similar to the aim of DPP.

However, these standards do not define the specific information requirements for DPP, as those will be determined by product-specific delegated acts that will be gradually made available by the EC. Based on ESPR regulation text and interactions with the relevant stakeholders and regulators, it’s is clear that DPP will encompass product related aspects like technical performance, environmental sustainability, circularity, legal compliance, and other product and manufacturer related information such as warranty details, manuals, and end-of-life treatment guidelines. The figure below illustrates an example of the types of information that could potentially be included in a Digital Product Passport (DPP) for a base station.

The Digital Product Passport opportunity

The DPP marks a major step toward a circular economy. By providing trustworthy and readily accessible product data, it will enhance transparency, traceability, and sustainable practices throughout the product life cycle. It will be a key tool to store and communicate verified and verifiable information on products across the value chain, making it an effective instrument to fight greenwashing.

The next few years will be pivotal. Implementing DPP will need strong collaboration among industry, regulators, standardization and tech providers. In ICT, we have about five years to get ready and we’ve already begun through internal preparation and standardization efforts.

The DPP enables innovation in product design, usage, reuse, supply chain management, and end-of-life practices, thereby promoting circularity and reducing environmental impact across the entire value chain in all sectors.

At Nokia, circularity and sustainability are core strategic priorities. We’re committed to driving this shift and are actively shaping the standards that will build a circular ICT industry.