For years, sustainability in fashion has been discussed as a narrative theme: campaigns, “green” labels, statements of principle. Today, that language is giving way to something much more concrete and less avoidable: a structured system of mandatory data. The Digital Product Passport (DPP) arises within the European regulatory framework on sustainable product design, which aims to introduce requirements of transparency and traceability throughout the entire life cycle.
In the knitwear sector, this change takes on an even deeper meaning, because every garment is the result of an articulated supply chain that starts from yarn and involves multiple production phases, often managed by a knitwear manufacturer and by different suppliers.
It is not an extension of existing labels, but a deeper change: the transition from a described product to a documented product.
From physical product to “documented” product in knitwear
The Digital Product Passport is based on a precise concept: traceability as a structure, not as a declaration.
Every clothing item, including knitwear products, has always been accompanied by essential but limited information. The digital passport introduces a change of scale: the product becomes a set of structured, accessible and updatable data.
According to analyses published by Fashion for Good, this system creates a connection between the product and a database that collects information along the entire supply chain. In the case of a garment, this means being able to connect the finished product to the characteristics of the yarn, to the manufacturing processes and to intermediate transformations.
A study by the European Parliament on the textile sector highlights that the objective is to build an informational continuity between the different phases of the life cycle, making data on materials, processes and transformations accessible.
The product ceases to be only an object and becomes an information node.
This step is decisive because it changes the very nature of information: no longer synthetic declarations, but organized data that can be compared and, at least in part, verified.
Data, not narrative: what changes for knitwear
One of the most relevant effects of the digital product passport is the reduction of space for ambiguity.
In the current model, much information on sustainability is communicated through generic terms. The DPP instead introduces more precise informational requirements: detailed composition, substances used, indications on durability and end of life.
Technical analyses such as those published by TraceX highlight how this system is designed to limit misleading communication practices, introducing a minimum base of comparable data.
The result is not an absolute truth, but a context in which statements must be supported by more structured information.
A system designed for the life cycle of the garment
The digital passport is not designed only for the moment of sale. The information associated with the product accompanies it over time.
According to analyses by Circularise, this approach is fundamental to enable circular economy models, because it allows better management of post-purchase phases, such as repair or recycling.
In the case of knitwear, knowing the composition of the yarn and the construction of the garment is essential to determine its possibilities of reuse or recovery.
Data therefore becomes an operational element: it does not serve only to describe the product, but to determine its future possibilities.
The French precedent: the AGEC law and transparency in knitwear
Even before the Digital Product Passport took shape at the European level, France had already introduced a series of regulatory tools that go in the same direction.
The AGEC law (Anti-Gaspillage pour une Économie Circulaire), adopted in 2020, was created with the objective of transforming the economic model from linear to circular, reducing waste and increasing transparency along the life cycle of products, including knitwear.
One of the most relevant aspects concerns the obligation to provide detailed environmental information to consumers, often through digital product sheets accessible also via QR code. These must include elements such as the percentage of recycled materials, the recyclability of the product and the geographical traceability of the main production phases, including the origin of the yarn.
Starting from 2025, French regulation has also introduced the so-called “environmental cost” (textile eco-score), a synthetic indicator that expresses the environmental impact of a garment along its entire life cycle.
This system, although more synthetic, anticipates the logic of the DPP: making readable and comparable the informational value of a garment produced by a knitwear manufacturer.
Structural difficulties in the knitwear supply chain
Despite the clarity of the objectives, the system presents concrete criticalities.
A study by the Publications Office of the European Union highlights how the collection and management of data along the supply chain are among the main challenges, especially in a sector characterized by long and fragmented supply chains, such as knitwear.
The difficulties concern the quality of the data, their standardization and the costs of implementation. Academic research published on arXiv also highlights problems related to the decentralized management of information and to the scalability of systems.
An infrastructure destined to remain for the knitwear sector
The Digital Product Passport is not an experimental initiative, but part of a regulatory strategy destined to consolidate.
Sector analyses show how it will progressively become a requirement to operate in the European market, introducing a level of transparency that will hardly be removable.
In this sense, French initiatives do not represent an alternative, but an anticipation: a first attempt to translate into practice what the DPP is trying to systematize on a broader scale, also for knitwear products.