Digital Product Passport: When Products Speak and Sustainability Becomes Tangible

What happens when design research and technology teach products to speak – and sustainability suddenly sounds very different?

Products sit silently.On shelves, in boxes, on pallets. And yet, they carry everything inside them: origin, materials, ideas, responsibility.

But what if they were allowed to speak?What if a sneaker could tell you who made it?What if a bottle of wine could describe its journey?

This is exactly where the joint project between Narravero and Münster University of Applied Sciences begins.It explores how products, through the Digital Product Passport, can become part of a real conversation – one that is clear, engaging, and relevant.

What a Product Says and How It's Understood

The Digital Product Passport (DPP) is coming. That much is certain.But how must it be designed so that people don’t just encounter it but actually listen?

This is the heart of our collaboration with the Faculty of Design at Münster UAS:How can we shape content within the DPP so that it's instantly understood, emotionally memorable – and meaningfully used?

A product that speaks needs more than a data structure. It needs intention. And a language people can connect with

Prof. Dr. Daniel Braun, FH Münster

Prototypes That Create Impact

This isn’t just a research project, it’s a workshop. At FH Münster, DPP prototypes are being created that show how raw data becomes real experience – through language, design, and interaction.

We're testing with real products: clothing, furniture, bottles of wine.What happens when a fabric explains its origin? When a chair displays its CO₂ footprint without pointing fingers? When a wine doesn’t just list facts, but tells a story?

We want students to see the Digital Product Passport not as a form, but as a stage – a prompt for interaction that creates real value for brands, businesses, and above all, the goals of a circular economy.

Dr. Inga Ellen Kastens, CCO Narravero

Because that’s what this is really about: Not presenting sustainability as an obligation – but as relevance.

Digital Product Passport: Rethinking Sustainability - Aesthetics Over Morality

If something is meant to last, it has to be felt.

That’s the challenge in a world of circularity:To create systems that don’t just function, but resonate. That don’t preach responsibility, but allow people to experience it.

At FH Münster, the work is not about buzzwords but about storytelling. It’s about translating responsibility into aesthetic experience.About a generation that knows: Change doesn't come through lectures – but through emotional connection.

Maybe that's the real insight from this collaboration: Sustainability stops being moralistic and starts becoming meaningful.

Design That Invites, Not Intrudes

We want to create content people enjoy reading – or better yet, content that doesn’t need to be read, because it explains itself.

Dr. Inga Ellen Kastens, CCO Narravero

This is why the focus isn't just on the data – but on the relationship between person and product. Not linear. Not instructional. But modular. Adaptive. Accessible.

And because good design never happens in a vacuum, every insight gained flows directly into the further development of the "Narravero DPP".

The Digital Product Passport: Not Louder, Just Clearer

This collaboration shows what becomes possible when technology, research, and intent come together.

Digital Product Passport and Sustainability: It can be more than a technical layer. It can become a new kind of medium, one that creates closeness, trust, and sustainability.