Making fashion more sustainable with Madeby’s digital product passports

Madeby Planet Earth has developed an innovative technology platform that supports fashion and textile companies adopt more sustainable practices through the use of Digital Product Passports (DPPs) or Digital IDs. With funding from the Made Smarter Innovation | Digital Supply Chain Hub programme, Madeby progressed the development of product unit level traceability, a game-changer for tracking each item from start to finish, making it easier to reuse materials and driving value in the circular economy. 

Challenges facing the fashion and textiles industry 

The fashion and textile industry faces many challenges in meeting sustainability targets. One of the biggest hurdles to industrial decarbonisation is the lack of available data about a product once it leaves the manufacturer, making it difficult to track and manage products in a way that supports recycling, repair or resale. The introduction of new European regulations, such as the Ecodesign Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) which took effect in July 2024 means that starting in 2027, product specific regulations will require companies to design textiles with sustainability and recyclability in mind. Non-compliance could lead to significant penalties, including fines and temporary exclusion from public procurement opportunities.

The fashion industry generates 1.2 billion tonnes of carbon emissions annually, and in an industry that loses $460 billion globally due to underutilised clothing and a lack of recycling initiatives, there is a need to implement sustainable practices to reduce emissions and improve profitability. With any challenge, there is opportunity. If consumers were to wear their clothes twice as often, effectively doubling the average use phase, greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced by 44% across the industry. With better resale and recycling practices that are controlled by the manufacturer, there is potential to facilitate multiple financial transactions per unit produced. However, the stumbling block remains the lack of data to enable this. 

To address this challenge, Digital IDs are able to log critical information about each product including where an item was made, the materials used, and the specific instructions for care, repair, and recycling. Demand for Digital IDs in the apparel industry is expected to grow to $1.5 billion by 2030, so there is an opportunity waiting for a solution that can meet this demand. By using product Digital IDs, Madeby’s platform helps brands to keep products in use for longer, maximising the longevity of the textiles.  

Riikka Olli, CEO of Madeby Planet Earth said - "For us, what's crucial moving forward is lifecycle event management at the unit level, as we believe it will be a key driver for the industry to achieve a circular ecosystem and economy. With this, we feel ready to deliver two key benefits for brands and businesses, firstly, data solutions to meet upcoming regulations and secondly driving profitability with a smarter use of data while scaling the circular economy"

Madeby Planet Earth’s solution for increasing profitability and reducing carbon emissions 

Madeby leverages upstream supply chain data, automated flows and real time records of events to facilitate downstream value chain transactions which can extend the useful life of apparel, footwear and home textiles. Its solution benefits textile companies directly in several ways. By giving products Digital IDs, brands can track products more easily, enabling new commercial path ways. For example, a single piece of clothing can be sold second-hand, rented out, or repaired multiple times, doubling its profitability. 

If consumers can be encouraged to change their habits by knowing more about the origins of a garment and doubling the average lifespan through multi wear or second hand consumption, the data made available through the Madeby platform also provides manufacturers with a much improved and holistic measurement of the environmental impact of the product lifecycle. By enabling this view of available data, the platform helps companies report more accurately,  helping to comply with new and future regulation changes, avoiding fines, protecting brand reputation and enabling them to achieve their carbon impact goals.

Support from the Digital Supply Chain Hub programme 

Involvement in the Digital Supply Chain Hub programme has supported Madeby Planet Earth to enhance its platform in three key areas:

• Improvements in unit-level tracking: Digital Catapult enabled Madeby Planet Earth to develop its capacity to track individual products throughout their lifecycle, adopting technologies like QR (quick response) codes or NFC (near field communication), which store and share key information about each item, allowing manufacturers to manage resale, repair and recycling processes. 

• Real-world testing: Working within the Digital Supply Chain Hub’s textiles testbed allowed Madeby to simulate real-world scenarios with data, refining the platform’s functionality and preparing it for practical deployment and market readiness. 

• Regulatory alignment: Through collaboration with QSA Partners, a consultant specialising in the circular economy, Madeby was able to ensure its platform aligned with environmental regulations like the ESPR and gained a better understanding of regulations like extended producer responsibility, ensuring the platform can meet future legal requirements. 

Next steps towards a greener fashion industry

Madeby Planet Earth is contributing to changing the way the fashion industry operates by making it more sustainable with its Digital Product Passport platform. Madeby continues working with pilot brands to test its platform to ensure that the solution addresses the challenges that the industry faces with access to available data. When fully launched, the platform will offer advanced data integration, AI-driven analytics and customer facing innovations such as QR enabled applications to promote responsible product use and recycling. 

Looking to the future, Madeby Planet Earth has set ambitious targets to digitise one billion fashion items and double the lifespan of at least half of them by 2030. With around 100 billion new fashion items manufactured every year, there is a huge opportunity to reduce waste and make a real environmental impact.