Frequently Asked Questions

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a digital record of a product's key information across its whole lifecycle, including origin, materials, environmental impact, and repair and recycling details. People reach it by scanning a QR code or a similar data carrier. For your business, the DPP is becoming a legal requirement under EU rules. It also helps you build customer trust, back up your sustainability claims, and make compliance easier. benelog helps you turn it into a working system. You can read more on our Digital Product Passport service page.

The EU's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) requires regulated products to carry a Digital Product Passport. That passport holds standardised, machine-readable information about sustainability, materials, and lifecycle, and people reach it through a data carrier such as a QR code. The exact data points are set per product group through delegated acts. benelog helps you map these requirements onto your real product and supply-chain data.

DPP obligations are being phased in by product group under the ESPR. Batteries come first: industrial and electric-vehicle batteries above 2 kWh must carry a battery passport from 18 February 2027. Other groups follow through roughly 2027 to 2030, including textiles and apparel, iron and steel, aluminium, and electronics. The dates move as each delegated act is finalised, so confirm the timeline for your category with benelog before you plan.

A Digital Product Passport usually contains the product's identity, its origin (where and when it was made), the material composition and sources, environmental impact such as carbon footprint, and repair and recycling instructions. EU delegated acts set the precise mandatory fields per product group. benelog structures this data on open GS1 standards so it stays interoperable and audit-ready. There is more detail on our DPP service page.

For consumers, the Digital Product Passport gives clear, trustworthy access to a product's origin, sustainability, and repair information, which helps them choose with confidence. For brands, it builds trust, highlights sustainable products, simplifies compliance across several regulations at once, and improves supply-chain visibility. benelog helps brands use the DPP as a customer-facing asset that adds value beyond the compliance work itself.

Access to a Digital Product Passport is tiered. Consumers see public information such as origin, sustainability, and care or recycling guidance, while regulators, recyclers, and supply-chain partners can be granted deeper, role-specific data. Deciding who sees what is a data-governance question, and benelog designs DPPs so you keep control of your data. See our data sovereignty page for how that works.

The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) requires companies that place certain commodities on the EU market, such as wood, cattle, soy, coffee, cocoa, palm oil, and rubber, plus products made from them, to prove their supply chains are deforestation-free using traceability and geolocation data. It applies to importers, traders, and manufacturers that deal in those goods. benelog turns this into practical traceability. See our regulations service page.

CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) requires large companies to report standardised sustainability and ESG information. CS3D, also called CSDDD (Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive), requires them to find and address human-rights and environmental risks across their value chains. Both rely on supply-chain data that is reliable and auditable. benelog helps you capture that data once and reuse it across your reports.

The LkSG (Lieferkettensorgfaltspflichtengesetz) is Germany's Supply Chain Due Diligence Act. It obliges companies to manage human-rights and environmental risks in their supply chains through documentation and risk analysis. benelog supports compliance with digital documentation and automated, data-driven risk analysis. See our regulations service page.

benelog helps you meet EUDR, CSRD, CS3D, and LkSG by capturing your supply-chain events in a standardised, interoperable form, so scattered operational data becomes the auditable, shareable record these laws ask for. We build on the open-core, GS1-based OpenEPCIS platform and connect it to your existing systems. The result is one traceability backbone that serves several regulations at once.

You can start today by identifying your in-scope products, getting your product and supply-chain data into a standardised, interoperable form, and assigning GS1 identifiers and a GS1 Digital Link, the structured web address behind the product's QR code. benelog runs assessments, pilots, and proofs-of-concept so you can validate an approach well before the deadlines. Get in touch at info@benelog.com to scope a first step.

A standards-based Digital Product Passport uses open GS1 standards such as GS1 Digital Link and EPCIS, so your data stays portable, interoperable, and readable by any partner, regulator, or tool, with no vendor lock-in. Proprietary solutions can trap your data in a single platform's format. benelog builds on the open-core OpenEPCIS platform, and you can read the technical detail on openepcis.io.

No, benelog integrates with your existing ERP, warehouse, and manufacturing systems instead of replacing them. We add a standards-based traceability layer that captures the events you already generate and makes them DPP-ready and compliance-ready. That keeps disruption and cost low while getting you ready for the regulations.

Timelines depend on scope, data maturity, and the number of products and partners involved. Most programmes begin with a focused pilot that runs in weeks rather than months, and scale from there. benelog typically starts with an assessment and a proof-of-concept, so you see value early and lower the rollout risk. Contact us at info@benelog.com for an estimate for your case.

Data sovereignty means your company keeps full control of its data, including how it is accessed, shared, and used, even as that data flows across systems, platforms, and borders. It matters because traceability and the DPP require sharing data with partners and regulators, and you need to do that without giving up ownership or breaching privacy rules. benelog designs trustworthy, selective data exchange. See our data sovereignty service page.

benelog builds traceability on interoperable, standards-based exchange where you decide what is shared, with whom, and for what purpose, which supports compliance with GDPR and your contractual obligations. Deployments can run in your own environment or be managed by benelog, so sensitive data stays where you want it. The aim is collaboration that protects privacy and ownership.

benelog (benelog GmbH & Co. KG) is a German software company, founded in 2004 and based in Cologne, that builds traceability and supply-chain solutions and specialises in the GS1 EPCIS standard. It is led by CEO Thomas Hirsch and Head of Technology Sven Böckelmann. We help manufacturers, retailers, and logistics providers turn regulations like the DPP, EUDR, and CSRD into working track-and-trace systems. We are also the company behind the open-core OpenEPCIS project. You can follow benelog on LinkedIn.

benelog develops and maintains OpenEPCIS, the open-core, standards-conformant implementation of GS1 EPCIS 2.0. OpenEPCIS follows an open-core model: a core set of EPCIS tools and libraries is free and open source, while benelog also offers the commercial OpenEPCIS Business Edition together with implementation, integration, support, and managed hosting on top of it. You can explore the technology on openepcis.io and its technical FAQ.

Yes. benelog is a GS1 Germany Innovation Partner and Solution Partner, and it even keeps a physical office in GS1 Germany's co-working space, which shows how closely the two organisations work together. benelog tech lead Sven Böckelmann co-chairs the GSMP Visibility Standards Maintenance Group at GS1, the group that maintains the EPCIS standard. So benelog helps shape the very standards it implements for clients.

Getting started is simple. Contact benelog at info@benelog.com to discuss your products, the regulations in scope, and your timeline, and we will propose an assessment or a pilot. Whether you need DPP readiness, EUDR or CSRD compliance, or end-to-end traceability, we tailor the approach to your existing systems.