日本語 
A Japanese-made product reaches a recycling plant in Europe. The recycler scans the barcode and learns what the product is. That’s it. What it’s made of, how much recycled material went into it and how to pull it apart all stay hidden. Digital Product Passports (DPPs) exist to close that gap.
Industrial processes are gradually moving away from the make-use-disposal approach. Firms are being compelled to be more transparent in relation to their products and to prolong the lifespan of materials. Japan has a lot at stake in this matter. Foreign manufacturing subsidiaries of Japanese firms reported record sales of ¥170.3 trillion in the fiscal year 2024, and hence Japan has a large-scale manufacturing infrastructure that spans national borders.
Sustainability considerations are increasing the demand for tracing a product throughout its lifecycle. In this article, the principles of DPPs will be discussed, along with reasons why Japanese companies should care about DPPs and the obstacles in implementing them.
What Are Digital Product Passports and Why Do They Matter Now?
A DPP is a digital record of a product’s life. Manufacturers, suppliers, consumers, repair shops and recyclers can all pull up the information they need from it.
You get to it through a QR code, an RFID tag or some other data carrier fixed to the product. What’s inside depends on the product and the regulations covering it, but typically you’d find:
- Who made the product and what it is
- What it’s made of, including recycled content
- Details on manufacturing and the supply chain
- Environmental impact and the product’s carbon footprint
- How to repair, maintain, reuse or recycle it
The EU is driving this through the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), in force since July 2024. Don’t expect everything to change overnight, though. The rules roll out product group by product group. Certain batteries are first in line and will need a passport from 18 February 2027.
If you export from Japan, that’s reason enough to start cleaning up your product data and traceability. A DPP also lets a company stop juggling separate compliance documents and work from one reliable record that travels with the product along the supply chain.
Japan’s Manufacturing Landscape Where Tradition Meets Traceability
Monozukuri, the craft of making things well, sits at the heart of Japanese manufacturing. Kaizen, constant improvement and strict quality control earned the country its global reputation.
Traceability is a different job. A good quality check inside one factory won’t do it. Information has to move between suppliers, manufacturers, distributors and recyclers, and it has to arrive intact.
Japan’s multi-tier supply chains make that tough. The big manufacturers tend to run advanced ERP, product lifecycle management (PLM) and manufacturing execution systems. Further down the chain, smaller suppliers might still be using spreadsheets, paper files or software that connects to nothing. Try collecting consistent data across a full product lifecycle in that setup and you’ll see the problem quickly.
The government has begun to act. An amended Act on the Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources took effect on 1 April 2026. Designated manufacturers now have to prepare recycled-resource utilisation plans and report on them, and the Act also backs environmentally conscious product design. It does not, however, require every Japanese manufacturer to issue DPPs.
Industry is moving too. In January 2026, SATO Corporation published the results of a proof of concept run with Nakadai Holdings and RadarLab. They followed a discarded label printer through manufacturing, distribution, dismantling and recycling. They also tried using recovered ABS resin to make a handheld labeler.
What came out of it? Product data really can help recyclers, and it can help manufacturers reuse materials. The trial also showed how much hinges on getting different companies’ data to connect.
Building the DPP Data Foundation
Putting a QR code on a product takes minutes. The harder part is having dependable data, systems that can work together and clear rules about who shares what.
1. Fragmented data across systems
Product information gets scattered across ERP, PLM, manufacturing and environmental management systems. Each has its own formats and identifiers.
Say a product’s material composition is stored in one system and its carbon footprint in another. Until someone links them, there’s no DPP worth trusting.
2. Interoperability between supply chain partners
A passport is only useful if the person reading it can make sense of it. Suppliers, though, rarely describe material names, recycled content or production details the same way.
METI backs the Ouranos Ecosystem to deal with exactly this. It supports data sharing between businesses, with projects on carbon footprint and due diligence data in automotive and battery supply chains, chemical and material information management and automotive lifecycle assessment. The idea is a common base for sharing data. Nobody has to switch to the same software.
3. Data quality and governance
A DPP with wrong or stale data loses credibility fast. Manufacturers need ways to verify information, trace where it came from and update it whenever a product or material changes.
Someone also has to own each data field. With several suppliers feeding in information, that question gets messy.
4. Data security and access control
A consumer wants repair and recycling guidance. A supplier needs technical material specifications. Neither needs everything, and some details are commercially sensitive and should stay private.
That means setting access rights up front: what’s public, what goes to business partners and what only authorised authorities can see.
5. Choosing the right level of traceability
Following every single product costs more than following a batch or a model. What makes sense depends on the product, its lifecycle and the regulations that apply.
Companies should check whether model-level, batch-level or item-level tracking is truly needed. Spending heavily on a complex tracking system before knowing the requirements is a mistake.
A Practical Roadmap for Japanese Manufacturers
You don’t have to rebuild every system at once. Taking it in phases keeps DPP adoption manageable.
- Assess existing data. Work out where product, material, environmental and supplier information lives. Look for gaps, mismatched formats and out-of-date records.
- Engage supply chain partners. Talk with key suppliers, distributors, repair providers and recyclers. Find out what they can give you and what they need from you. Smaller suppliers may need templates or hands-on technical support.
- Build an interoperable foundation. Review your ERP and PLM systems, product identifiers and data-sharing capabilities. Look at QR codes, RFID and suitable data standards. Reliable information exchange is the goal. Adopting new technology just for the sake of it isn’t.
- Start with a controlled pilot. Choose a single product line or export category. Test data collection, supplier participation, access controls and lifecycle tracking. Then use what you find to spot weaknesses before you expand.
Starting small lets a company learn from a limited rollout before it puts resources behind the full product range.
Turning Traceability into a Manufacturing Advantage
Think of a Japanese product arriving at a recycling facility in Europe, its barcode on the product may tell the recycler what the product is, but not much about what it is made of, how much is recycled or how it can be taken apart. Enter Digital Product Passports (DPPs).
Also Read: NVIDIA Expands Production Capacity to Accelerate AI Infrastructure
DPPs offer a connection between product data and sustainability and product quality and supply chain transparency, particularly important for Japanese OEMs. The returns extend well beyond regulation. Improved data drives repair, recycling, material recovery and more clever product design.
In the fiscal year 2030, Japan is working on increasing the share of its circular resources input from 30.1% to 34%. DPPs will help achieve this goal through efficient tracking and reuse of materials.
Go back and check your information architecture, get your supply chain partners involved, and try out something. Doing this will ensure that you are in good shape once transparency and efficiency of resource use become as critical as product quality.
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