How Digital Product Passports Bridge the Gap Between ESG Strategy and Product Data

As the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive(CSRD) comes into force, organisations are under increasing pressure to move beyond sustainability ambition toward verifiable, data-driven reporting.

Many have a well-defined ESG strategy, yet still face acritical gap: the ability to connect product data with enterprise sustainability disclosures.

The question for many businesses, and for the advisory and integration partners supporting them, is how to operationalise CSRD in a way that is efficient, compliant, and scalable. Digital Product Passports (DPPs) are helping to bridge the gap between ESG strategy and product data.

What is the CSRD?

On April 21, 2021, the European Commission announced the adoption of the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which expands upon - and will eventually entirely replace - the existing Non-Financial Reporting Directive (NFRD).

The CSRD helps transform ESG reporting, requiring affected organisations to report their sustainability data, such as:

Environmental: 

• Greenhouse Gas emissions
• Waste levels
• Water usage

Social: 

• Employee count
• Working conditions
• Community impact

Governance: 

• Risk management
• Company structure

Large companies are the main target of the legislation: all organisations with revenue of €450+ million or 1,000+ employees based in the EU will be covered by the CSRD, as well as non-EU entities that generate that revenue amount from operations within the region.

The CSRD officially came into force on January 5, 2023,giving EU member states 18 months to transpose it into national law. As a result, the first reporting deadlines fell in 2025 and will continue to rollout up to 2029. Affected organisations that fail to comply will be hit with penalties for non-compliance ranging from financial fines to jail time.

The CSRD Data Challenge in ESG Strategy

With the CSRD demanding that affected companies now demonstrate their sustainability via data from their operations, supply chains, and product lines, organisations need to be much more disciplined with the quantity and quality of the data they capture.

Traditional ESG data capture systems struggle with the granularity of the data required to be audited on this new scale. They aggregate high-level metrics, but often lack product data and material-level traceability that is now demanded under the European Sustainability Reporting Standard (ESRS).

Bridging this gap requires a new layer of infrastructure  - one that connects products, materials, and lifecycle data directly to corporate sustainability systems. This is where Digital Product Passports (DPPs) enter the frame.

Digital Product Passports: Turning Transparency into Actionable Data

DPPs are becoming a critical tool in any organisation’s ESG strategy, recording product data in a transparent, verifiable, and accessible system.

As structured, interoperable records that accompany a product throughout its lifecycle, DPPs link physical items to verified product data - covering material composition, supply chain provenance, repairability, recyclability, and more.

DPPs represent a practical mechanism for collecting and standardising product-level information for convenient use within their ESG reporting, including that of the CSRD.

For example:

• Material traceability supports Scope 3 emissions calculations and lifecycle assessments.
• Circularity and end-of-life data informs sustainability metrics and resource efficiency goals.
• Supplier and compliance data strengthens audit readiness and third-party assurance.

In essence, DPPs transform regulatory obligation into structured, reusable data streams that enhance ESG reporting and compliance management.

How Service Integrators Can Help Advance CSRD Reporting via DPPs

The real value of Digital Product Passports emerges when they are integrated seamlessly into broader data infrastructure, such as PLM and ERP systems. Integrators bridge the divide between regulatory frameworks and operational execution - they help map the broader ESG strategy to the organisation’s data architecture.

By helping their client organisations to embed DPP capabilities into their existing enterprise systems, service integrators can help operationalise CSRD compliance and foster organisational change.

In this context, DPPs become a compliance plug-in rather than a complex technology implementation. Service integrators can help their clients build a simple but powerful modular layer that enhances their ESG strategy and sustainability programme without disrupting operations.

How Provenant Enables Integration and Scalability

At Provenant, we’ve built a purpose-designed Digital Product Passport platform engineered for integration, compliance, and future scalability.

Our solution combines:

• API-first architecture - enabling seamless connection to ESG, ERP, PLM and reporting systems
• EU-aligned compliance - developed in line with evolving DPP and sustainability mandates
• Partner enablement - providing integrators with a reliable DPP infrastructure to complement advisory and implementation services

Provenant’s approach transforms DPPs from a regulatory requirement into a strategic enabler for both clients and partners.

The Path Forward

CSRD has made data the new foundation of corporate sustainability. Digital Product Passports provide the infrastructure to deliver it.

As the EU ecosystem matures, forward-thinking integrators and their clients have an opportunity to lead - using DPPs to connect product-level transparency with enterprise-level accountability and inform ESG strategy.

When implemented effectively, DPPs can help organisations move beyond compliance towards streamlined CSRD and ESG reporting through structured, interoperable product data.

They help provide enhanced supply chain visibility, supporting risk management and circularity goals, improve data quality and audit readiness through verifiable digital records, and furnish organisations with new insights and innovation opportunities across sustainability and product development.

As the EU ecosystem matures, forward-thinking integrators and their clients have an opportunity to lead - using DPPs to connect product-level transparency with enterprise-level accountability.

 If you’re a service integrator looking to help your clients build DPPs into their ESG strategy, address their sustainability data gaps, and align their product data with the ESPR,  learn more about Provenant’s partner ecosystem here, or contact us to discuss.