Contents

Read this set in two ways. Take one document, if you arrived with one question. Or work down the menu, and it tells the whole story in order.

Each part below opens onto its own menu of subjects, and each subject holds the documents that answer it. Every document also carries a link to the one before it and the one after, so you can read straight through.

The nine parts

Part 1. Why any of this exists

The problem a passport is meant to solve, where the idea came from, and why it is in the news now.

1 subject, 3 documents: The problem, and the history

Part 2. What a digital product passport is

The definition, what it is not, what it holds, and who reads it.

4 subjects, 7 documents: The definition · What it holds, and who reads it · What it is not · What it costs

Part 3. The law that creates it

Two regulations, not one. The ecodesign frame reaches no product until a delegated act says so.

5 subjects, 11 documents: Start here · The ecodesign articles · How a rule reaches your product · The law that already binds · What happens if you do not comply

Part 4. The standards, and what they do not do

Six standards are cited in the Official Journal. None is compulsory, and their texts are sold rather than published.

5 subjects, 15 documents: What a standard does · Who writes them · The six that are cited · The two still in draft · Why you cannot read them

Part 5. When it reaches your product

One firm date, for three kinds of battery. Everything else is a plan, and some products are excluded outright.

5 subjects, 20 documents: Read the dates correctly first · The one sector with a firm date · Sectors with a plan and no rule · Sectors covered by another law · Products that are excluded

Part 6. How one actually works

From the code on the product to the data behind it. The identifiers, the carriers, the resolver and the formats.

6 subjects, 17 documents: The whole path, end to end · Identifying the product · Identifying the company and the place · Reaching the data · The shape of the data · Building one

Part 7. Who carries the duty

The operator that places the product on the EU market. For a New Zealand exporter that is usually the importer.

3 subjects, 8 documents: The operator the law names · Duties by role · Everybody else in the chain

Part 8. Who sees what, and for how long

A passport is not one public page. The data is split by reader, and it must outlive the company that made it.

3 subjects, 10 documents: Who may read which field · How long it must last · Keeping it true

Part 9. What it means in New Zealand

The reason this site exists here rather than anywhere else. Most of what the country exports is excluded.

5 subjects, 19 documents: Start here · By what you export · The New Zealand position · What New Zealand is asking · Working with your buyer

Appendices

The reference material. Each one is linked from every document.

• Appendix A. Digital product passport glossary Every term, defined so each one stands alone.
• Appendix B. The sources this site uses, and how they rank Every source, ranked, and what each one may not be used for.
• Appendix C. Every dated milestone for EU digital product passports Every dated milestone in one table, with the status of each date.
• Appendix D. Digital product passport questions and answers The short answers. Most of them are no, or not yet.
• Appendix E. What this site does not know The gaps, in one place, and what was searched.
• Appendix F. All documents Every document, grouped by subject.
• Appendix G. Index Every term, article and standard, and where each one is discussed.
• Appendix H. Corrections Every correction to a published fact, in date order, and what it cost a reader.