ETHICA: ESPR-Compliant DPP Infrastructure for Logistics

ETHICA translates requirements of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) into a scalable infrastructure for digital product passports. The research question is: How can heterogeneous product, transport, and ESG data be automatically extracted, harmonized, verified, and shared in an auditable way? The DPP as a digital product passport connects AI, eCMR information, and compliance for ESG data along global value chains.

At the center is an AI-supported DPP infrastructure that ensures semantic interoperability, data integrity, and compliance along global value chains. The project responds to the need for scalable systems for the digital product passport under EU regulation, particularly in the context of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR).

The technical challenge lies in fragmented data sources: ERP, TMS, and logistics systems, supplier declarations, eCMR data, certificates, IoT sensors, and unstructured documents deliver information in different formats. ETHICA connects these sources with legal language models, retrieval-augmented generation, explainable AI, temporal graph neural networks, knowledge graphs, SHACL validation, EPCIS 2.0, GS1 Digital Link, and other standards used in logistics.

The goal is a secure, interoperable framework that makes regulatory requirements machine-readable, strengthens ESG traceability, and protects confidential business and IP data.

• Move your logistics data toward DPP and ESG compliance.
  Compare DPP and ESG requirements from ESPR, CSRD, REACH, and LkSG with your data situation.
• Identify relevant sources: eCMR, TMS, ERP/PLM, IoT data, and operational documents.
• Further develop transport documents into DPP-compatible ESG data sets.
• Test AI-supported extraction, compliance validation, audit trails, and access controls.
• Examine the transferability of the ETHICA project results to your own logistics and supply chain processes.
• Assess compatibility with standards such as EPCIS 2.0, SHACL, and GS1 Digital Link.

Review DPP use case

"ETHICA is developing an AI-based platform for ESPR-compliant digital product passports that makes sustainability data transparent, interoperable, and verifiable."
Jens Leveling, consortium coordinator, Fraunhofer IML

In the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), the European Union stipulates that digital product passports (DPP) with transparent sustainability data on environmental impacts, social impacts, and governance must be provided step by step for almost all physical products. Currently, this requires consolidating a large volume of data from heterogeneous systems. This means complex and cost-intensive processes and is barely feasible, particularly for small companies.

The goal of the ETHICA project is to develop a user-friendly platform based on artificial intelligence (AI) that enables companies in all sectors to provide sustainability data transparently, interoperably, and verifiably for their DPP. The focus here is particularly on data integrity and the confidentiality of sensitive company data. To this end, specific use cases and regulatory requirements are first recorded in six pilot sectors (electronics, automotive, logistics, construction, timber, and energy). A compliance engine is then developed in which legal requirements are modeled using standardized processes. In parallel, data from heterogeneous sources are extracted using AI models and used as a basis for sustainability assessment. All building blocks are to be integrated and demonstrated in a shared environment.

• DPP obligations, ESG evidence, and eCMR data meet operational logistics processes.
• Recognize which data sources are relevant for auditable digital product passports.
• Examine how eCMR data support ESG reporting and compliance validation.
• Assess which AI components ETHICA is developing.
• Derive where project results can be transferred to your own logistics processes.

In a brief exchange, you can clarify which ETHICA results, demonstrators, and data models match your DPP, ESG, and eCMR questions.

Contact the ETHICA team

With ETHICA, the electronic consignment note becomes a carrier for ESG data: the eCMR should not only document transport information but also capture structured data on environment, social issues, and governance. This includes CO₂ emissions, transport mode, load factor, energy source, fuel consumption, working hours, rest breaks, shift patterns, subcontractor details, safety requirements, product origin, legal documentation, as well as packaging and recycling data.

Data are generated from IoT sensors, vehicle telematics, logistics management platforms, mobile applications, and on-site inspection systems. Large language models support the extraction of ESG-relevant content from transport documents, customs declarations, and driver logbooks. Natural language understanding maps multi-jurisdictional legal texts to route-specific compliance requirements.

This makes multimodal logistics more transparent: freight documentation is evolving into a living compliance instrument for sustainability, traceability, and cross-border harmonization.

The ESPR forms the central regulatory framework for digital product passports. It extends the previous ecodesign approach to almost all physical products in the EU internal market and makes structured, electronically accessible data sets on sustainability, service life, repairability, recyclability, material composition, and end-of-life management relevant.

ETHICA links this framework with further requirements and initiatives: CSRD, REACH, LkSG, EU Battery Regulation, GDPR, AI Act, Data Act. For technical interoperability, the project uses standards and approaches such as eCMR, EPCIS 2.0, as well as preliminary work and concepts relating to Gaia-X.

For decision-makers, this results in a robust frame of reference: an EU digital product passport can only be scaled if data models, access control, AI validation, and auditability are designed together.

The novel platform for creating digital product passports on the basis of sustainability data is a central instrument for transparency and creates scalable and automated processes. This enables secure, sovereign, and interoperable networking across national and sectoral boundaries. In the long term, the project results are intended to accelerate the digital and green transformation and give European companies a competitive advantage through transparent, circular supply chains.

ETHICA addresses several growing markets. The global market for digital product passports was estimated at 185.9 million US dollars in 2024 and is expected to reach around 1.7805 billion US dollars by 2030. The software segment held more than 60 percent market share in 2024 and is expected to grow to over 900 million US dollars by 2034. Digital product passport software is thus gaining importance as infrastructure for compliance, transparency, and the circular economy.

Germany has a strong starting position for this. Its export-oriented industrial base, the implementation of CSRD, LkSG and as well as Europe's largest logistics sector with 279 billion euros in 2022 create demand for interoperable ESG solutions. Initiatives such as GAIA-X, Catena-X, and the Mobility Data Space provide a viable basis for trustworthy data infrastructures. ETHICA contributes to this position by combining research, industrial application, and standardization capability.

ETHICA combines regulatory interpretation with technical verification. Legal language models analyze legal texts, retrieval-augmented generation incorporates up-to-date knowledge sources, graph methods model dependencies in supply chains, and explainable AI makes decisions traceable. This allows the platform to dynamically interpret regulatory requirements and apply them to DPP data models.

Trust is created through technical and organizational safeguards. Role-based access controls, verifiable credentials, audit trails, federated identity. Zero-knowledge proofs protect sensitive information. Companies can demonstrate conformity without disclosing complete data sets.

This approach is relevant for SMEs because ETHICA is preparing a scalable compliance-as-a-service model. It is intended to enable cost-efficient access to DPP infrastructures and lower barriers to entry.