Most Digital Product Passports get product truth wrong

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is meant to tell the truth, but when is that truth decided?

Most DPPs in fashion today are built around upstream intent and master data (think: what a product was planned and specified to be). But supply chains don’t deliver intentions.

They deliver what actually happened throughout the whole process.

The problem with product truth in fashion

Product data in fashion is often created long before a product exists. Materials are specified, origins are typically confirmed at factory level, transport is assumed, sustainability attributes are calculated, and compliance boxes are ticked. This is fine in principle.

But by the time the finished product reaches the warehouse, the operational reality (i.e., routes, timings, emissions) can be materially different.

Supply chains are fickle beasts. Factories change, materials are substituted, and transport routes differ. One delivery might arrive by sea while another lands by air. Production runs could be split and batches might vary. None of this is unusual.

It’s expected.

And yet, the information used for transparency, compliance, and sustainability continues to describe how a product was meant to be made, not how it actually entered the supply chain.

The difference *might* seem unimportant, but the reality is *noticeably* different.

When intent and execution diverge

The same SKU can carry varying implications depending on how and where it was produced and moved. A garment manufactured in the same factory, using the same materials, but transported under different circumstances is not identical in either environmental or regulatory profile.

Teams – often through no fault of their own – typically only reconcile the differences after the fact. Questions arise about which data is “correct”, historical context is lost, and organisations end up debating product truth instead of relying on it.

The issue isn’t a lack of data but the processes and tools that support it.

In many environments, product information is rarely anchored to the moment it becomes operationally real.

Product truth happens at receipt

The most reliable point at which a product’s full operational reality converges is when goods are received. What was actually delivered is confirmed and each receipt inherits the core production definition, but captures its own operational reality.

Product identity stays consistent, while production context, logistics outcomes, and sustainability attributes become specific to that delivery.

This isn’t because it’s easy (receipt-level passports introduce real operational and data-model complexity), but because it’s necessary.

The implications are immediate.

Recorded origins are factual, transport has taken place, variations between deliveries are clear, and the product exists as inventory.

DPPs no longer misrepresent the product, but become records of what actually happened.

Each passport carries the facts of that specific receipt: product and variant identity, batch or serial number, supplier and production site, material composition, compliance documents, and sustainability attributes such as carbon footprint – all as delivery-specific records.

Go back to our previous example of the same product received twice under different conditions. Each one would now have two distinct truths captured. Their histories are preserved and their differences are acknowledged, rather than averaged away.

As any industry professional worth their salt knows, product truth isn’t static, and it most certainly is not singular. DPPs should work this way.

Event data is part of this picture.

While shipping and receiving events can be captured in many supply chain systems, those events are rarely treated as the organising principle of the DPP itself.

Because of this, most DPPs still focus on upstream product definitions and are only appended with operational realities later.

Why history matters

A key component of DPPs is provenance, but without preserved, versioned records, you don’t really have it. You have a claim. Yet many approaches to product transparency today still rely on and prioritise the “latest” version of information, rather than the full history.

Older data is typically overwritten, amended, or archived outside of operational view. While that does certainly simplify presentation, it strips away crucial context.

Historical data allows organisations to understand how a product has changed over time, providing clarity on past decisions, shipments or claims.

Time-aware, versioned records ensure facts are always available, no matter whether you need to audit a product’s history or track provenance for high-end goods.

Narratives speak, records shout

The distinction between telling a product’s story and keeping a product’s record is important.

Too often have DPPs been marketed as tools to “prove” a brand’s sustainability and transparency claims. These narratives are flashy but miss the mark.

Narratives don’t stand up in audits.

The real work of a DPP is not to facilitate fancy claims about saving the planet, but to anchor product data to operational realities and provide a preserved, auditable trail that can be relied upon and used to guide future decisions.

QR codes, URLs and labels all still have a role to play, but the credibility of what they surface depends entirely on the integrity of the data behind them.

But if many DPPs rely on data that hasn’t actually happened, i.e., before the product reaches its final destination, how accurate can that information be?

DPPs should reflect the fashion supply chain

A DPP created each time goods are received, stored by product, variant, and batch or serial number, preserved across versions reflects how the physical fashion supply chain works.

Material substitutions between production runs, factory changes, and transport choices all become visible. Carbon footprints differ between air and sea shipments, while composition and origin can vary between batches.

Environmental attributes, material composition, origin details and compliance information are tied to specific receipts rather than general assumptions. The differences between deliveries remain visible, older records remain accessible, and current data is still surfaced first.

Over time, this creates a body of product data that mirrors reality rather than obfuscating it.

What next?

As regulatory requirements increase and expectations around transparency rise, the pressure to provide auditable product data will grow. Successful organisations will ultimately be those with the most dependable records, not the most polished disclosures.

None of that can be achieved without capturing product data accurately.

The K3 Digital Product Passport was built with this principle in mind. Each receipt creates a new passport instance or version, scoped by product, variant, batch or serial number, and grounded in operational data from D365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.

If you’d like to find out more about the K3 Digital Product Passport, feel free to drop us a line today.