Sustainability in trade law: ecodesign and supply chain duties

In trade law, sustainability is no longer a matter for the communications department. It determines whether you may place a product on the European market. It also determines which data you must supply and what you can demand of your suppliers. Companies that address this too late lose market access, or find themselves locked into contracts that do not match the rules.

The short answer

• Market access increasingly runs through product rules: ecodesign, batteries, deforestation-free commodities and, before long, the digital product passport.
• The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR) is a framework. The concrete requirements come per product group in delegated acts.
• The digital product passport obliges you to make data on origin, composition and reparability available in digital form.
• Supply chain obligations are imposed through the contract. Since Omnibus I there is a statutory ceiling on information requests addressed to smaller parties.
• In international trade, CBAM, the ban on products made with forced labour and the deforestation regulation all come into play.

Product regulation determines your market access

European product law works on a simple logic. If a product does not meet the requirements, it may not be placed on the market. Sustainability requirements have now become part of those requirements.

This affects more than manufacturers. Importers and distributors have obligations of their own. An importer must check that the manufacturer has drawn up the required documentation. A distributor must act with due care when offering products for sale. A business that sells a product under its own name or trade mark is generally treated as the manufacturer.

Check, therefore, who performs which role in your trading chain. That division of roles determines your exposure towards the regulators, and it is sensible to confirm it contractually.

Ecodesign and the digital product passport

Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 replaced the old Ecodesign Directive and widened its scope. Where the old rules were mainly about energy consumption, the ESPR also covers durability, reparability, recycled content and reuse.

The regulation itself contains few direct product standards. It empowers the Commission to set requirements per product group. The 2025-2030 working plan was adopted in April 2025 and names textiles, furniture, tyres, mattresses, iron and steel and aluminium among its first priorities. Horizontal measures on the reparability and recycled content of electrical equipment are planned as well.

Two elements already apply. First, the ban on the destruction of unsold clothing and footwear, which has applied to large companies since 19 July 2026. Medium-sized companies follow later; small and micro companies are exempt. Second, the reporting duty: a business relying on an exception must be able to substantiate it and must publish annually what has been destroyed.

The digital product passport is the instrument the ESPR introduces for this purpose. The passport makes product data digitally accessible throughout the chain: composition, origin, reparability and end-of-life treatment. The obligation takes effect per product group, through the delegated acts.

The battery passport runs ahead of this system. Under the Batteries Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 it applies from 18 February 2027 to traction batteries and industrial batteries above a given capacity, among others.

What this asks of you in practice

The product passport shifts the problem to your procurement function. You can only publish data that your suppliers give you. So do not start with the software; start with the contract and with the question of which data you already receive today.

Supply chain obligations in commercial contracts

Many sustainability obligations reach a company not directly through legislation but through its customer. Large companies pass their own obligations down through purchasing conditions and codes of conduct.