Digital Product Passports in Smart Textiles - Perspectives from Dr. Daniela Zavec

The smart textiles sector sits at the cutting edge of textiles and electronics. This creates both complexity and opportunity for brands when it comes to transparency, traceability, and circularity.

Dr. Daniela Zavec, founder of Titera and owner of ITP GmbH, brings nearly three decades of experience in textile engineering and innovation. She sat down with the Provenant team to discuss smart textiles and the potential benefits of Digital Product Passports could bring to the sector.

In this Q&A, she offers a practitioner’s perspective on where DPPs stand today, the real-world challenges of implementation, and what it will take for them to deliver genuine value to both industry and consumers within the smart textiles space.

How do Titera and ITP Support the Smart Textiles Space?

Dr Daniela Zavec: “Titera is best known for its collaboration with Textile ETP Brussels within the Smart X Innovation HUB. Beyond this flagship initiative, the company partners with textile clusters, academic institutions, and industrial partners across Europe. Titera is recognized as a flexible, precise, and reliable project partner.

ITP GmbH complements this work as a development-oriented company. Together with a team of engineers, ITP creates prototypes of smart textile products, designed either from internal needs or for business partners, and serves as a bridge connecting national research organisations with the business sector.”

What Constitutes a Smart Textile?

Dr Daniela Zavec: “Smart textiles are functional textile products with built-in sensors, tailored to deliver specific functionality for the end user. In practice, this can range from a leather glove with an integrated heating strip for enhanced thermal comfort to a technical textile with a built-in speaker designed for car interiors. The latter responds to the automotive industry’s push for lighter vehicles with fully degradable components at end of life.”

What are the Biggest Challenges in the Smart Textile Industry?

Dr Daniela Zavec: “Europe’s lack of self-sufficiency in raw materials, production capacity, and electronics remains the fundamental challenge. Beyond this, consumer acceptance and pricing are significant barriers - smart products are still confined to niche markets such as sports, wellness, interior design, medicine, and automotive.

Public awareness that smart products can be useful in everyday life remains too low, and the underlying technology is still too complex to manufacture according to a ‘keep it simple’ principle.”

How Might DPPs Affect the Smart Textile Supply Chain in the Future?

Dr Daniela Zavec: “Larger companies may see greater component transparency within their supply chain, but for smaller firms like ITP, where each prototype requires different components, the advantages will become clearer over time as DPPs are implemented.

If continuous data preparation develops over the coming years, the initiative will be welcome. Notably, Europe does not yet have a developed supply chain for smart textile products. We see the greatest value of DPPs could be in establishing a verified chain of suppliers under a ‘Made in Europe’ brand and in driving higher product quality.

If DPPs contribute to improving the quality of textile products, meaning higher-quality materials with fewer harmful chemicals, better knitting, and weaving that survives the first wash without falling apart or shrinking, then they will be a very welcome tool.

We hope that within the next three to five years, for firms utilising DPPs in the space, smart textile functionality can be brought closer to the everyday consumer.”

Conclusion

Dr. Zavec’s perspective makes clear that Digital Product Passports hold real promise for the smart textiles sector given that they have the capacity to drive genuine tangible improvements in product quality, support the development of European supply chains, and ultimately earn the trust of end users.

The smart textiles industry is still young, and its infrastructure in Europe is still emerging. Tools like DPPs can accelerate that growth, but success will depend on practical implementation, industry collaboration, and a broader cultural shift toward valuing European-made products. To understand how Digital Product Passports can be implemented in your smart textile business, reach out to Titera, ITP GmbH, or Provenant.