DPP Glossary — 60 Terms Defined

The Digital Product Passport field runs on acronyms: ESPR, UPI, EN 18219, GS1 DL, VC, DID, PCF, PEF, EPD, EPCIS, AAS. This glossary defines the terms you will meet in a compliance project in plain English, and links to the articles that go deeper.

Core concepts

Digital Product Passport (DPP)

A digital record presenting a product's identity, composition, environmental performance and compliance evidence in structured, machine-readable form, reached through a data carrier attached to the product. See the DPP guide.

ESPR

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, (EU) 2024/1781 — the framework regulation that gives the DPP its legal basis. See the ESPR guide.

Delegated act

Secondary, product-group-specific legislation adopted under a power delegated to the Commission by a framework regulation. A DPP obligation only arises through one.

Implementing act

A technical or administrative act adopted to ensure uniform application of a regulation — for example the rules governing the DPP Registry.

Economic operator

Any party placing a product on the EU market or making it available: manufacturer, authorised representative, importer, distributor and in some cases a marketplace. See economic operators.

Authorised representative

A natural or legal person appointed in writing by a non-EU manufacturer to carry out its obligations inside the EU.

Placing on the market

Making a product available on the EU market for the first time. This — not the manufacturer's location — is what triggers the DPP duty.

Identity and carriers

UPI (unique product identifier)

The identity that addresses a product globally and uniquely at model, batch or item level. EN 18219 defines the acceptable schemes.

Data carrier

The mark that binds the identifier to the physical product: QR code, Data Matrix, NFC or RAIN RFID tag. EN 18220 sets the rules. See data carriers.

GTIN

Global Trade Item Number — GS1's product number, the 8–14 digit identity behind retail barcodes. See what a GTIN is.

GS1 Digital Link

The GS1 standard that turns a GTIN into a web-addressable URI. The de facto default identifier pattern for DPPs. See GS1 Digital Link.

GLN

Global Location Number — GS1's identifier for parties and locations, used for production sites and operator identity.

LEI

Legal Entity Identifier — a global legal-entity identity issued through GLEIF, one of the operator schemes EN 18219 accepts.

DID

Decentralized Identifier — a W3C standard for identities verifiable without a central registration authority. See DIDs.

IEC 61406 Identification Link

A self-issued, URL-shaped identifier standard widely used on industrial products. See IEC 61406.

Resolver

A service that redirects an identifier to the passport address currently in force, using content negotiation to return HTML to a browser and JSON to a machine. See resolver services.

Data Matrix

A 2D code that packs dense data into small areas, preferred for direct part marking (DPM). See Data Matrix and DPM.

RAIN RFID

The UHF RFID family, readable contactlessly and in bulk — common in logistics and store inventory. See NFC and RFID.

Standards

EN 18219

Defines acceptable schemes for unique identifiers (product, operator, facility). See EN 18219.

EN 18220

Covers data carriers and the link between the physical product and its digital representation, requiring free, app-free, smartphone-readable access. See EN 18220.

EN 18216

Data processing, exchange protocols and formats — RESTful APIs over HTTPS/TLS. See EN 18216.

EN 18221

Data storage, archiving and persistence rules. See EN 18221.

EN 18222

Passport lifecycle management and searchability APIs: create, read, update, search, registry submission. See EN 18222.

EN 18223

System interoperability: terminology, the core data model and semantics. See EN 18223.

EN 18239

Access-rights management, information system security and commercial confidentiality. See restricted data tiers.

EN 18246

Data authentication, trustworthiness and integrity — electronic signatures and tamper evidence. See EN 18246.

CEN/CENELEC JTC 24

The European technical committee producing the DPP system standards under standardisation request M/604. See JTC 24.

Harmonised standard

A standard cited in the Official Journal of the EU. Applying it confers a presumption of conformity with the corresponding legal requirement.

Data and semantics

JSON-LD

A JSON serialisation for linked data — the default passport exchange format in the CIRPASS-2 reference architecture. See JSON-LD and DPP data.

RDF / Turtle

The underlying linked-data model and its text notation. The Battery Pass data model is canonically expressed in Turtle.

AAS (Asset Administration Shell)

The Industry 4.0 structure describing an asset's digital twin, widely used in the automotive and battery ecosystem. See AAS and Catena-X.

EPCIS 2.0

GS1's event-based traceability standard, recording what, where, when and why. See EPCIS 2.0.

Verifiable Credential (VC)

A cryptographically signed, independently verifiable digital statement (W3C standard). See verifiable credentials.

UNTP

The UN Transparency Protocol — UNECE's global, decentralised passport and traceability stack. See UNTP.

Catena-X

The automotive sector's dataspace ecosystem, including the CX-0143 DPP standard.

Granularity

The level a passport is kept at: model, batch or item. See choosing granularity.

Environmental data

LCA

Life Cycle Assessment — a systematic account of a product's environmental impacts from cradle to grave. See LCA basics.

PCF

Product Carbon Footprint, expressed in kg CO2e. See how to calculate a PCF.

PEF

Product Environmental Footprint — the Commission's multi-criteria method across 16 impact categories. See PEF.

EPD

Environmental Product Declaration — an independently verified, rules-based environmental statement. See what an EPD is.

ISO 14067

The standard for quantifying and reporting a product carbon footprint.

Scope 3

The GHG Protocol category covering indirect value-chain emissions. It cannot be calculated without product data.

Recycled content

The share of post-consumer or pre-consumer recycled material in a product. See proving recycled content.

Mass balance

A chain-of-custody method that attributes recycled input to output by accounting where physical segregation is impossible.

Compliance and governance

EU DPP Registry

The central index created by ESPR Article 13, holding identifiers and pointers to passport locations. See the Registry guide.

Market surveillance

The activity of national authorities checking product compliance. See market surveillance.

eIDAS

The EU framework for electronic identification and trust services, where the qualified electronic seal is defined. See eIDAS and signing.

Declaration of Conformity (DoC)

The document in which a manufacturer declares a product complies with the applicable EU legislation.

CBAM

The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism. See CBAM and the DPP.

CSRD / ESRS

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and its reporting standards. See CSRD and product data.

CSDDD

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. See CSDDD.

EUDR

The EU Deforestation Regulation. See EUDR.

PPWR

The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. See packaging and PPWR.

EPR

Extended Producer Responsibility. See EPR.

SVHC / SCIP

Substances of Very High Concern under REACH, and the EU database for notifying them in articles. See chemicals, REACH and SCIP.

Frequently asked questions