Ensuring Usefulness: Socio-Technical Design Principles for Digital Product Passports

Transitioning to a circular economy requires innovative tools to ensure transparency, resource efficiency, and lifecycle management. Digital product passports (DPPs) have emerged as a key enabler, providing stakeholders across value chains with actionable product lifecycle data. While technical and regulatory frameworks for DPPs are advancing, limited attention has been given to their socio-technical design—balancing functionality with usability, accessibility, and stakeholder engagement. This research-in-progress addresses this gap by exploring how to design DPPs that effectively support sustainable practices in the furniture sector, a high-impact industry facing significant challenges in material traceability and end-of-life management. Adopting a Design Science Research methodology, this study develops a DPP prototype tailored to the furniture sector, integrating centralized lifecycle data modules, real-time condition monitoring, repair guidance, and environmental context analysis. Grounded in socio-technical theory, this research derives five actionable design principles to guide DPP development, emphasizing transparency, adaptability, security, and stakeholder collaboration. Preliminary findings indicate contributions both theoretically, by advancing socio-technical design frameworks, and practically, by offering a scalable and user-friendly approach to DPP development. By aligning technical functionality with social dynamics, this research aims to provide innovative solutions to drive sustainable production and consumption practices.