Model
Fixed by design: fibre composition, recyclability, footprint class, care. What shoppers compare at the point of sale.
ESPR 2024/1781 · Textile apparel · Delegated act ~2027
Soon, every garment carries its whole life.
What it's made of, what's hidden in it, where it was cut, how to care for it, how to bring it back. Born across fifteen hands, ending in one passport.
The problem
Data is born upstream. The duty sits downstream.
One garment passes through fifteen hands before it reaches a shelf. Each one knows only the supplier beside it. Fibre, chemistry, origin, footprint: the proof a passport needs is scattered up a chain that guards every link as a trade secret. The law hands the whole bill to the last name in the chain.
Brands see only tier-1. Tier-2, tier-3 and origin stay dark. No APIs. Just PDF certificates, re-typed into every buyer's portal.
15+economic operators behind one garment
80%of EU garments are imported
99%of the supply chain are SMEs
0APIs. It travels by email and PDF
The challenge is not the availability of data. It is the absence of standardised formats, interoperable systems, and scalable digital workflows.
JRC · Study on DPP content for textile apparelThe flow
One passport, assembled across the chain.
The law asks one company for a record it doesn't hold. Bindu builds it in seven moves.
01 · Ask
Ask each tier for the one field it holds.
Bindu reaches every supplier, tier-1 down to the raw material. It asks for one field, in the language they answer in.
fibre %dye lotfacility GLNtest reportrecycled cert
02 · Normalise
Turn PDFs and email threads into identifiers.
Every answer maps onto the prEN18219 identity model. Nobody re-keys the same certificate into ten portals again.
SGTINGTIN + lotParty GLNEORIHS6 · TARIC10
03 · Verify
Recalculate. Don't just trust.
Gates recompute what the law lets authorities recompute: robustness, footprint, recycled share. Certificates attach where the rules demand them.
ISO 15487 robustnessPEFCR footprintISO 14021 recycled %GRS · GOTS
04 · Assemble
Fill the four content categories.
The JRC's four buckets: identification, producer, product information, compliance. Each filled at the right grain. Batch the floor, model the default, item when it helps.
identificationproducerproduct infocompliance docs
05 · Register
One identifier to Brussels. The data stays yours.
The identifier goes to the EU DPP Registry, live 19 July 2026. The content stays with you, or your passport service provider. Nothing sensitive sits on an EU server.
UPI → EU RegistryUOIUFIdecentralised content
06 · Carrier
Put a durable link on the garment.
Mint the carrier: QR, RFID or NFC. Fixed to the garment. It survives the wash and still resolves years after the sale.
QRRFIDNFCwash-durable
07 · Publish
One passport, three doors.
It goes live with three doors: public for shoppers, legitimate interest for recyclers, authority for customs. Verifiable credentials hold the line. Kept ten years, in every EU language.
PublicLegitimate interestAuthority10-yr retention
The scan
Scan the label. Read its life.
A shopper, a recycler, a customs officer. Same record, a different page for each. Pick a door. Watch the fields change.
Bindu passport · UPI
PublicUnique product identifier
PublicProduct category
PublicProducer identity
PublicFibre composition
PublicRobustness score
PublicRecyclability score
PublicRecycled / organic %
PublicSubstances of concern + concentration
PublicCarbon footprint class
PublicCare & repair info
PublicWarranty
Legit. interestLocation of substances of concern
Legit. interestDisassembly / end-of-life info
Legit. interestAbsolute footprint value
Legit. interestFootprint calculation parameters
Legit. interestRecycled & organic weights
AuthorityEconomic-operator contacts
AuthorityConformity certificates & declarations
AuthorityAppended inspection reports
Each door inherits the ones above it. Verifiable credentials hold the tiers. No login leaks the recycler's view to a shopper.
Granularity
Model, batch, or item?
How fine you go is the whole cost question. The JRC settles it: batch is the floor, model the default, item a voluntary head start.
Batch
The floor the law asks for. Producer, dye chemistry, self-declared tests. The things that change from run to run.
Item
A serial ID, assigned early and cheap. Then fed events as they happen: repair, resale, recycling. The inheritance model.
Why the shopper isn't the whole story.
What people buy on · YouGov 2021 · 11,483 people82% still find the environmental labels useless, lost among 297 ecolabels. The real hunger is downstream. At the recycler.
The calendar
The dates are already set.
The passport lands around 2028. The scaffolding is being poured now. Two of these dates don't move.
18 Jul 2024
ESPR enters into force. Textiles are named a priority product group in the first Working Plan.
2026
CEN-CENELEC JTC24 publishes the horizontal DPP standards: identifiers, carriers, access rights, interoperability.
19 Jul 2026Hard date
The EU DPP Registry must be operational: the authoritative lookup that holds every product's unique identifier.
2026
This JRC study opens to public consultation. The one moment to shape what the passport carries.
~2027Expected
The textile-apparel delegated act is adopted. It fixes the fields, the carrier and the grain, in law.
~2028
First textile passports appear in practice. A delegated act applies 18 months after it lands, at the earliest.
The loop
The passport outlives the sale.
End-of-life is where the passport earns its keep. It is also where today's tools go blind.
Recycling's infrared scanners can't read blends, layered garments, materials under 5%, or dark colours. Printed labels fade or get cut out. One thing survives the wash and still names every fibre. The passport.
- NIR fails on blends
- multi-layer
- minerals < 5%
- dark colours
- faded labels
How it's built
We didn't invent the plumbing.
Bindu runs on Eclipse Tractus-X, the open dataspace the German car industry already ships its supply chains on. Its building blocks are KITs, “Keep It Together”. Pick one to see the job it does.
Cross-industry
Eco Pass
The Digital Product Passport blueprint: the data model a garment's passport is built from, the carrier it binds to, and the public page it resolves to when someone scans it.
- DPP aspect models
- Data-carrier binding
- Public + restricted views
Who files it
You place it on the market. Bindu carries the proof.
ESPR names an independent passport service provider to run the DPP for the operator. That is the job Bindu was built for. The boring guarantees are where you win it.
10 yearsevery passport kept and reachable
24 languageslive in every official EU language
Full auditversioned, append-only history
Shared liabilityimporter and maker, handled
No greenwashingvoluntary fields kept honest
The detail · Textile DPP
Textiles are in the first wave of the Digital Product Passport (DPP) under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), Regulation (EU) 2024/1781. The apparel passport itself arrives once a delegated act is adopted — but a concrete, dated obligation lands first: from 19 July 2026, large companies may no longer destroy unsold clothing and footwear.
Key dates for textiles under the ESPR.
| Date | What happens |
|---|---|
| 18 Jul 2024 | ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) enters into force; textiles named a priority product group. |
| 19 Jul 2026 | Ban on destroying unsold clothing, accessories, and footwear applies to large companies. |
| 2027 → | Textile DPP obligations expected once the ESPR delegated act for textiles is adopted (date set by that act). |
What a textile passport is likely to carry
- Product & batch identity
- Fibre composition & materials
- Country of key production steps
- Care, repair & durability
- Recyclability & circularity
- Compliance & substances of concern
When will textiles need a Digital Product Passport?
The ESPR sets the framework; the details for each product group come in a delegated act. Textiles and apparel are in the first working-plan wave, so the passport is expected to phase in from around 2027— but the exact date, scope, and data set only become binding when the textile delegated act is adopted. Treat any single “textiles DPP deadline” you see elsewhere with caution until that act lands — the textile DPP timeline untangles the 2026/2027/2028 dates.
What is the ban on destroying unsold textiles?
This is the first hard, dated textile obligation under the ESPR. From 19 July 2026, large companies may no longer destroy unsold clothing, clothing accessories, and footwear. Instead, unsold stock has to be prevented, prepared for re-use, donated, or recycled.
Companies also have to disclose, annually, the volume and weight of products they discard and why — and keep the records. It is a reporting-and-prevention duty, not just a ban. See the full unsold-stock ban breakdown for who is covered and what to do instead.
Who has to comply with the destruction ban?
Large companies from 19 July 2026. Medium-sized companies get an extended transition period before the ban applies to them, and micro and small enterprisesare exempt from the destruction ban. Company-size thresholds follow the EU's standard definitions — worth confirming your own classification, because it sets both whether and when the rule bites.
What will a textile DPP require?
Exact fields wait on the delegated act, but the direction is clear from the ESPR and the preparatory work: a scannable record covering product and batch identity, fibre composition and materials, key production steps, care, repair, and durability, recyclability, and compliance information including substances of concern. Granularity is expected at batch rather than individual-item level for most data — a detail many summaries get wrong.
Sources
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR) — full text on EUR-Lex
- European Commission — Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation
- European Commission — ban on destruction of unsold textiles and footwear
Last reviewed 11 July 2026