The Life of a Jacket: How Digital Product Passports Will Change What Happens After You Buy 

You’ve just bought a jacket. 

It fits perfectly. You like the colour. And tucked into the care label, there’s a small QR code. 

You scan it. 

Instead of simply finding washing instructions, you discover information about the jacket’s materials, where it was made, how to care for it, how to repair it and what could happen to it when you no longer want it. 

Welcome to the world of the Digital Product Passport (DPP). 

At first glance, it might look like nothing more than a QR code on a label. But that little code can be the doorway into a much bigger journey — one that follows your jacket from the supply chain to your closet, and potentially from one owner to the next. 

And there is a bigger shift happening underneath it all. 

Every product is becoming two things: the item, and the data that proves it. 

So let’s follow the jacket. 

It starts with an identity 

Before the jacket reaches the store, it needs a digital identity. 

A DPP creates a digital record associated with a product, model, batch or individual item. Depending on the product and use case, that record can bring together information such as product identification, material composition, origin, certifications, care instructions, durability, repair and end-of-life information. 

That digital identity can then be connected to the physical product through a data carrier such as a QR code, NFC tag or another machine-readable technology. 

For example, our jacket might have a digital record containing: 

• Product ID: JKT-2028-00452 

• GTIN: [illustrative identifier] 

• Batch ID: BATCH-VN-0428 

• Material composition: 100% recycled nylon shell, recycled polyester lining 

• Recycled content: 75% 

• Manufacturing facility ID: VN-FAC-0187 

• Certification reference: CERT-REC-20481 

The exact identifiers and data fields will vary by product, business and use case. 

The important point is this: 

The identifier creates the connection. It doesn’t create the information. 

For example, GS1 Digital Link provides a way to connect a product’s GS1 identification to online sources of information. A QR code using GS1 Digital Link can therefore act as a bridge between the physical product and digital information about it. 

And that is where our jacket’s journey gets more interesting. 

Scan the jacket, see what’s behind it 

You scan the QR code on the label. 

What might you see? 

Product 

Lightweight Recycled Nylon Jacket 
Style: JKT-2028 
Colour: Stone 
Size: M 

Materials 

Shell: 100% recycled nylon 
Lining: Recycled polyester 
Recycled content: 75% 

Origin 

Manufactured in: Vietnam 
Facility: VN-FAC-0187 

Care 

Machine wash at 30°C 
Do not tumble dry 
Air dry recommended 

Next life 

Repair options 
Resale information 
Recycling guidance 

Information that once sat across different documents, systems and supply-chain partners can now become accessible through the product itself. 

But making that possible starts long before the scan. 

Follow the jacket backwards 

Let’s go back to where the jacket came from. 

The nylon came from a material supplier. 

The zipper came from another supplier. 

Other components may have come from somewhere else. 

The jacket was assembled in a factory, potentially moved through a warehouse and eventually delivered to the retailer. 

At each stage, information was created. 

Where did the material come from? 

What is it made of? 

Was recycled content used? 

Which facility manufactured the garment? 

Which certifications apply? 

What happened to the product along the way? 

What instructions should the next owner follow to care for it? 

And eventually: what can happen to it when it reaches the end of its useful life? 

This is where the DPP starts to look less like a label and more like a connected information layer around the product. 

The passport may be digital, but its foundation is physical: materials, suppliers, factories, products and the events that happen to them along the supply chain. 

Standards such as GS1 EPCIS can help businesses share supply-chain visibility information about what happened, when, where and in what business context. Not every DPP will use every GS1 standard, but the underlying principle is important: product information needs to remain connected as the product moves through the supply chain. 

Three years later: the jacket changes hands 

Fast forward three years. 

The jacket is still in good condition, but its first owner has stopped wearing it. 

Instead of going into a cupboard — or worse, a landfill — it is listed for resale. 

The jacket now has a second owner. 

But its digital identity can stay connected to it. 

The new owner can access information about the product. A resale platform can use relevant product details. A brand might be able to support the transaction or offer repair and care services. 

Digital identity can become useful here because the product has a history that does not have to disappear when ownership changes. 

Companies such as EON are already developing digital product identity experiences designed to support resale and other circular services. In fact, EON has already partnered with Poshmark to let Coachtopia customers resell their products with a pre-filled listing generated straight from the product’s digital identity.

The jacket has entered its second life. 

And then comes its third 

Eventually, even the best jacket reaches a point where it is no longer suitable for wearing. 

This time, it goes to a recycler. 

The recycler has a different set of questions. 

What is the jacket made from? 

Which materials are present? 

Can different components be separated? 

What should happen to them? 

Without reliable product information, answering those questions can be difficult. 

With the right information connected to the product, its digital identity can help make the next step more visible. 

The jacket may be repaired. 

One jacket. Many users. 

Think about everyone who might need information about the same jacket. 

The consumer wants to know what it is made from and how to care for it. 

The repair provider needs to know how the garment was constructed and what can be repaired. 

The reseller needs accurate product information to support a second transaction. 

The recycler needs to understand its materials and composition. 

The brand needs visibility across the product’s lifecycle and the supply chain behind it. 

One product. 

Multiple questions. 

One connected source of information. 

That is where the potential of the DPP starts to become much bigger than the QR code on the label. 

The QR code is the easy part 

Putting a QR code on a jacket is relatively easy. 

The harder question is what happens when someone scans it. 

Is the information complete? 

Is it accurate? 

Can it be trusted? 

Where did it come from? 

Who verified it? 

Is it still current? 

And what happens when that information comes from dozens of suppliers and facilities across multiple tiers of the supply chain? 

The data behind a DPP can span a wide range of areas, and these details may come from very different sources. 

This is where the simple QR code starts to look rather less simple. 

Because the consumer sees one jacket. The brand may see hundreds of pieces of data behind that jacket. 

That data may already exist. 

It could be sitting in bills of materials, product specifications, material libraries, supplier records, audit reports, certification documents, order information or other systems. 

The challenge is that it may not all be connected. 

And when information is scattered, keeping it complete, structured, validated and current becomes much harder. 

The data problem starts before the scan 

There is another part of the DPP journey that consumers will probably never see. 

The supplier experience. 

Imagine a supplier that has already provided its material composition, certifications, factory information and other product details to one system. 

Then another system asks for the same information. Product development, supplier management, order management, shipping, inspection and compliance all need it as well. 

The underlying facts may be the same, but they can end up being collected, formatted and maintained separately. 

The result is familiar to many supply-chain teams: suppliers repeatedly entering or sending the same information, brands reconciling data from different sources, and teams spending time chasing information that may already exist somewhere in the organisation. 

That creates a problem for DPP readiness. 

Because the question is not simply: 

“Do we have the data?” 

It is: 

“Can we connect the right data to the right product, verify it, keep it current and use it when we need it?” 

Building the data foundation 

Preparing for DPP is therefore less about creating a new digital passport and more about making the information behind the product useful. 

A brand may already have much of what it needs. 

The opportunity is to bring together information across product development, sourcing, suppliers, compliance, factories and traceability — and connect it to the products it belongs to. 

That means creating a stronger foundation for product and supply-chain data rather than repeatedly asking different teams and suppliers to recreate it.

This is where TradeBeyond can play a role. 

By connecting product, supplier, compliance and traceability information across the supply chain, TradeBeyond helps create a more unified data foundation that can support the information requirements behind emerging product experiences such as DPPs. 

The DPP becomes the visible layer. 

The connected data behind it is what makes that layer useful. 

The jacket’s journey comes full circle 

So let’s return to that little QR code. 

You scan it and see a jacket. 

But behind that scan is a much bigger journey: 

Materials → Manufacturing → Supply Chain → Store → Consumer → Resale → Repair → Reuse → Recycling 

The interesting part of the Digital Product Passport is not really the QR code. 

It is the possibility of giving a product a connected digital identity that can remain useful as the product moves through different stages — and different hands. 

For consumers, that could mean better information about the products they buy and what happens to them next. 

For brands, it means something more fundamental: building the connected product and supply-chain data foundation that makes those experiences possible. 

Because the next time you see a QR code on a jacket, don’t just think about what is behind it. 

Think about everything that had to happen before you could scan it.