In the coming years, Digital Product Passports (DPPs) will be mandated in the Dutch construction industry through the ESPR, requiring manufacturers to provide detailed information of their products. However, if DPPs remain merely a compliance requirement, the industry may not invest sufficiently to fulfill its circular economy ambitions.
To address this challenge, this thesis aims to unpack the business value that DPP implementation brings to manufacturers in the Dutch construction industry, thereby motivating their investment in DPPs. The research employs various qualitative methods to address four research questions: understanding how DPPs are defined and perceived (RQ1), gaining insights on DPP implementation from early adopter experiences (RQ2), co-creating value-driven implementation goals and steps with manufacturers (RQ3), and determining how to support value-driven DPP implementation (RQ4).
These questions are answered through literature exploration, interviews with construction industry stakeholders, non-construction early adopters, and DPP experts, alongside three co-creation workshops with manufacturers and various design activities.
The findings reveal that early adopter experiences follow four distinct phases: Awareness, Evaluation, Action, and Reflection, with the Evaluation phase proving most crucial for success. Notably, construction manufacturers currently perceive DPPs as presenting significant challenges while seeing relatively little potential, which is a stark contrast to the opportunities described in existing literature.
When exploring value-driven implementation, manufacturers identified varied goals and steps that must be tailored to their specific contexts, highlighting the need for customized approaches rather than one-size-fits-all solutions.
Given the current undeveloped landscape, this research proposes that manufacturers cannot be coerced into DPP implementation. Instead, a “gentle encouraging” approach is needed that validates manufacturers’ experiences, addresses their challenges, and builds confidence for implementation. To support this approach, this thesis developed future adoption scenarios as a practical resource for navigating implementation uncertainty.