Developing Trusted Digital Product Passport Ecosystems for Circular Economy

Digital Product Passports (DPPs) are emerging as a key policy instrument within the European Green Deal, supporting the EU’s ambition to achieve climate neutrality and foster a circular economy. Introduced under the Eco-design Regulation for Sustainable Products (ESPR) (European Commission 2024), DPPs serve as structured digital records containing essential product data related to sustainability, circularity, and compliance. By enabling transparency and traceability across value chains, DPPs are intended to drive more sustainable production and consumption practices. With regulatory frameworks rapidly evolving, their adoption is expected to become mandatory in the near future, placing increasing pressure on organizations to develop the capabilities needed for effective implementation (European Commission 2025) Despite their potential, implementing DPPs involves challenges that extend beyond technical design, with trust emerging as a central concern. We view DPPs as digital product identities whose effectiveness depends on trust among diverse stakeholders across value chains. Trust, defined as the willingness to be vulnerable based on positive expectations (Mayer et al. 1995) is mutual as each participant is both trustor and trustee. It is built through shared data and collaboration but also shaped by legal frameworks and institutions. Regulatory mandates alone are insufficient to guarantee adoption; trust mitigates risks associated with incomplete contracts (Coase 1937; Long and Sitkin 2018) and helps prevent costly failures in circular ecosystems where trust breaches can have wide-ranging ripple effects (Friend et al. 2010). For example, manufacturers, regulators, and consumers must trust that DPP data is accurate, secure, and not subject to misuse or greenwashing (Markt 2022). DPPs must enable “trust to travel” across actors, evolving dynamically rather than remaining static. Trustworthy DPPs, perceived as reliable by design, can enhance trust in products and their value chains (Söllner et al. 2012), but trust must continuously be cultivated and transferred across the ecosystem (Doehne et al. 2024). Taking a holistic ecosystem perspective that integrates social, technical, and governance factors shaping trust in DPP data sharing ecosystems (King et al. 2023; Ducuing and Reich 2023; Heeß et al. 2024), the objective of this study is twofold (1 to conceptualize a networked trust model for DPP ecosystems with trust as an organizing principle, and using this trust model as its foundation (2) develop a multi-actor method that enables ecosystem participants and orchestrators to identify and reconcile trust requirements to support effective and meaningful DPP adoption. The research follows a Design Science Research approach (Hevner et al. 2004) with the ex-ante and ex-post evaluations (Sonnenberg and vom Brocke 2012) through explorations and applications in renewable fuels, container logistics, and modular construction domains.