The circular economy begins with the environmental impacts of products — the smaller the environmental impacts of the products businesses bring to market, the more significant their contribution to the long-term process of transitioning from a linear to a circular economy. Accounting for a product’s environmental impacts started with the application of environmentally conscious design in product development and has since expanded to encompass the application of ecodesign and circular design concepts in standardisation, economic policy, and the day-to-day business activities of companies.

Since Estonia’s circular economy focus is directed towards waste management and extending the lifespan of waste, every new EU Circular Economy Action Plan initiative or legislative act causes confusion here. The digital product passport is one such example. So — while I do want to write about the digital product passport, I must begin with the concepts of environmentally conscious design, ecodesign, and circular design.

Environmentally conscious design (ECD) is defined by standard EVS-EN IEC 62430 as a strategic design thinking process that takes into account the environmental impacts of a product across its full lifecycle. The term environmentally conscious design is frequently used interchangeably with ecodesign. Unlike environmentally conscious design, ecodesign is a product-centric concept based on the lifecycle environmental impact assessment of a product or product group. The ecodesign methodology derives from Directive 2009/125/EC and is intended to define and harmonise requirements for finished products that are connected to an energy network, through the EN 4555X standards family.

Today, however, the context of both concepts has changed fundamentally, because with the adoption of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), Directive 2009/125/EC was repealed.

The ESPR creates the basis for establishing harmonised ecodesign requirements for the vast majority of physical goods categories placed on the EU internal market (with the exception of food, feed, and medicinal products), lays the groundwork for increased consumer awareness through the digital product passport reflecting information on products’ environmental sustainability, and serves as the framework for preventing the destruction of unsold goods. The ESPR thus extends beyond products connected to the energy network to include the intermediate products needed to manufacture them — such as metal and iron products, critical raw materials, and similar items — and products that do not themselves consume energy during the use phase.

Most importantly, the ESPR shifts us from design thinking to systems thinking.

Circular design is a concept grounded in systems thinking and circular economy principles that is substantially broader than environmentally conscious design and ecodesign, and addresses the various practices of the circular economy — from selecting an appropriate circular business model to eliminating waste generation and pollution through design choices. Attempts have been made to integrate the circular design concept with the principles of environmentally conscious design, i.e. recommending that product development be based on standard 62430. However, circular design remains a considerably more specific concept than environmentally conscious design and ecodesign. While these do incorporate several aspects of circular design — such as R-strategies and solutions aimed at extending product service life — the differences are more significant, which is why they are not synonyms.

It is important to understand that ecodesign and circular design are based on different methodologies and serve different analytical objectives. Unlike ecodesign, the starting point for circular design is not the reduction of a product’s environmental impacts through resource-efficient product development, but rather sustainable resource use across the entire supply chain. Or, to use the specific yet precise explanation given in standard 59004: the difference between circular design and ecodesign lies in the fact that circular design also covers the resource selection process required to apply circular economy principles — systems thinking, value creation, value sharing, resource management, resource traceability, and ecosystem resilience.

To summarise. Ecodesign standards all derive from Directive 2009/125/EC — the energy-related products ecodesign directive, which has now been repealed — and their purpose is to harmonise requirements for material use efficiency across different product groups. These are CEN-CLC standards ranging from 45552 to 45559: product-specific standards focused on material use efficiency, used as the basis for environmental declarations of energy-related products, i.e. as the basis for CE marking. But that directive no longer exists. There is only the ESPR — the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation framework.

The ESPR’s goal is to support the attainment of the targets set by the EU Circular Economy Action Plan, and on this basis, the development of new sustainable product design standards has begun across the value chains of the main internal market products identified in the Circular Economy Action Plan. For reference, the agreed principal value chains are:

  • electronics and information and communications technology;
  • batteries and vehicles;
  • packaging;
  • plastics;
  • textile products;
  • construction and buildings;
  • food, water, and nutrients.

Why do we need to know this? Because the ESPR lays the foundation for the use of digital product passports.

The digital product passport is the central tool of the circular economy, and its use ensures that all informed value chain stakeholders — manufacturers, wholesalers, consumers, and waste operators — have access to essential, traceable, and reliable product information.

Preliminary work on developing the technical solution required for the introduction of the digital product passport has been ongoing for nearly a year. In the EVS circular economy technical committee, we have endeavoured to keep pace with developments, and today we can say that one important milestone has been reached. CEN has opened for summer review and commenting all the technical standards required for the digital product passport:

  • prEN 18216 — defines consistent and efficient data exchange protocols and data formats;
  • prEN 18219 — creates a framework for the creation and management of unique identifiers;
  • prEN 18220 — defines the requirements for data carriers used in the digital product passport system;
  • prEN 18221 — specifies the requirements for decentralised data storage, archiving, and data persistence in the digital product passport;
  • prEN 18222 — standardises the digital product passport API specifications;
  • prEN 18223 — describes organisational, semantic, and technical interoperability.

The actual roll-out of the digital product passport will take place step by step over the coming years, and the standards listed above create only the technical foundation. The substantive details — including which product groups and intermediate products will be added to the digital product passport list — will be set out in delegated acts. It is not entirely uncharted territory, however, as the ESPR and Energy Labelling Work Plan for 2025–2030, published by the European Commission in April 2025, clarifies the priority areas. With the Construction Products Regulation coming into force in January 2025, new product requirements for the construction and buildings sector are already known. The next priorities are:

  • steel and aluminium;
  • textiles and clothing;
  • furniture;
  • tyres;
  • mattresses;
  • IT equipment.

Businesses operating in these sectors — including in Estonia — should prepare for the implementation of the digital product passport. The necessary legislation for product-specific requirements will follow. The energy transition of the green transition may well be over; the resource transition of the green transition has only just begun.

References are available here: Anu Kull — TalTech thesis: Quantification of Circularity

When using this text, please cite: A. Kull, Circular Village: A Circular Economy Business Model in Real Estate Development. Tallinn University of Technology, 2025.