The SDEX Standard has been developed to align, where possible, with the growing mandatory requirements emerging from European policy. While not directly derived from legislation, it reflects the direction of travel in the EU regulatory landscape and aligns, where feasible, with the core data points required under most apparel and footwear-related compliance frameworks.
Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR)
The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) establishes a framework for setting up product-specific sustainability requirements within the EU. It introduces the possibility of mandatory performance and information requirements, including robustness, recycled content, environmental footprint, and the Digital Product Passport. SDEX supports information readiness by structuring product-level sustainability data in a consistent and comparable format. While not a Digital Product Passport system, SDEX aligns, where possible, with the type of structured product data that ESPR and future delegated acts are expected to require.
Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) requires companies operating in the EU to disclose standardized sustainability information in accordance with the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). This includes reporting on environmental, social and governance impacts, risks and performance, and information related to resource use, circularity, and supply chains.
Although CSRD is primarily an organization-level reporting framework, several of its disclosure requirements depend on reliable underlying product- and material-level data. These include, for example: reporting on the use of recycled and renewable materials, disclosure of resource inflows and material composition, information relation to durability, circularity and waste and transparency on value chain activities and supply chain structure. These reporting obligations are a key driver behind the growing demand for structured product-level sustainability data across the apparel and footwear sector.
SDEX supports this need by providing a harmonized framework for capturing and exchanging consistent product and brand-level information, strengthening data governance, and improving readiness for CSRD reporting and audit scrutiny.
Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR)
The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) regulates what kind of packaging can be placed on the EU market, as well as packaging waste management and prevention measures. All packaging must comply with essential requirements related to its manufacturing, composition, and reusable or recoverable nature.
SDEX supports this by providing a structured framework to capture and exchange packaging-related product data, including weight, recycled content and associated certifications, helping brands and retailers organize the information needed to assess packaging compliance and support PPWR-related reporting.
Digital Product Passport (DPP)
Digital Product Passports (DPP) is designed to collect and share data about a product and its supply chain across the entire value chain. DPPs enable all stakeholders, including consumers, to gain a deeper understanding of the materials used in products and their associated environmental impacts.
As of February 2026, the infrastructure required to operationalize the DPP is still not clearly defined. While the overall direction of travel is understood, there is limited clarity on how data should be structured, exchanged, hosted, and accessed in practice, particularly across complex organizations and value chains. This is largely because key elements of the regulatory framework are still being finalized, and guidance on implementation has not yet been fully developed.
Based on current timelines, we expect further clarification and more concrete guidance to emerge around Q2 2026. Until then, much of what is happening sits in a preparatory and exploratory phase, both from a regulatory and a technical perspective.
