Digital Product Passports as Information Providers for Consumers—The Case of Digital Battery Passports

Abstract

Sustainable consumption is crucial to transitioning toward a more sustainable society. Various tools, including information provision tools such as ecolabels, aim to promote sustainable consumption but are often criticized for failing to adequately inform consumers. This study examines digital product passports (DPPs), an emerging policy tool, as a means of enhancing consumer communication. Given the development of battery passports, the case of DPPs for electric vehicle batteries was selected. A method incorporating elements of the self-explicated and lead-user approaches was used, and a survey was conducted (n = 211) to determine which types of information provide the most value to consumers. The results identified the most relevant DPP attributes (e.g., “expected lifetime” and “CO2 footprint”) from a consumer perspective. Groupwise comparisons based on environmental attitude and correlation analyses revealed that respondents' environmental attitudes significantly influenced their perceptions of the benefits of the investigated DPP attributes.