UK explores its own Digital Product Passport (DPP) record policy, with call for evidence open until September

The UK government has opened a call for evidence on digital product record (DPR) policy, published jointly by the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and the Department for Business and Trade on 27 July 2026. The exercise is meant to inform whether and how the UK should develop a domestic framework for digital product records, comparable in concept to the EU's Digital Product Passport (DPP), and to understand the impact such a system, or its absence, would have on businesses, consumers and supply chains. Responses are due by 21 September 2026.

The starting point for this call for evidence is that EU DPP requirements already apply in Northern Ireland under the Windsor Framework and affect any UK business selling into the EU or Northern Ireland market, regardless of whether Great Britain adopts its own equivalent. The EU's DPP framework, established under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) 2024/1781, is being rolled out sector by sector, starting with batteries and construction products from 2027, with further delegated acts expected for iron and steel, aluminium, electronics and ICT, textiles, furniture, detergents and several other product groups. The UK government notes that this phased EU rollout is the reason the timing of this call for evidence matters: the first mandatory deadlines are close enough that UK policy choices now will shape how domestic and EU-facing compliance work interact.

Importantly, this call for evidence is scoped around the underlying DPR architecture and framework question, not sector-specific data requirements. The government is running separate, more targeted UK engagements on how DPRs might apply to specific product categories, several of which are already underway:

1. Toys — a call for evidence on toy safety regulations, open until 6 October 2026, specifically asking how the EU DPP would affect UK toy businesses.
2. Construction products — the Construction Products Reform White Paper consultation and the associated General Safety Requirement consultation both closed on 20 May 2026 and are under review, having proposed digital product information and labelling aligned with the EU CPR where practical.
3. Low carbon industrial products — the Policy Framework to Grow the Market for Low Carbon Industrial Products consultation has already concluded, with a government response published in May 2026 confirming voluntary guidance on embodied emissions reporting for steel, cement and concrete.
4. Batteries — Defra has held early workshops with industry on aligning UK battery producer responsibility rules with the EU Battery Regulation's Digital Battery Passport, but has not yet opened a formal consultation and plans to do so "in due course."

The government intends to read the results of this DPR call for evidence together with these product-specific engagements, so responses feed into a single policy picture rather than being assessed in isolation.

The consultation covers three main areas: awareness and preparation for EU DPP requirements, expected compliance costs (both one-off, such as IT changes and supplier data collection, and ongoing), and data readiness, meaning whether businesses already hold the product and supply chain information a DPR would require.

A recurring theme is divergence risk. The government asks what impact separate DPR rules would have across Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the EU, and whether a future UK system should aim for interoperability with the EU, for example through a shared data carrier, or take a GB-specific approach instead. For companies already building EU DPP compliant systems, this is where that divergence question gets decided, so early input matters to avoid duplicate data infrastructure down the line.

This work also connects to the UK's product safety framework consultation, which proposes a "digital by default" approach to product labelling and compliance marking more broadly, separate from but complementary to DPR-specific policy.

Source: UK Government, Call for evidence: digital product record policy