Digital Material Passports - Key Enabling Elements to improve Quality, Sustainability and Circular Economy

Digital Material Passports (DMPs) have emerged as a transformative tool that facilitates material data and tracking, quality assurance, sustainability and end-of-life resource recovery along the supply chains. This paper demonstrates the role of DMPs as a foundational element in advancing transparency and traceability. DMPs have been identified as a key enabling element in the Aerospace-X consortium, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) under the funding code ID 13MX004A as part of the Manufacturing-X funding program. The objectives of the consortium are building the digital ecosystem for the aerospace industry, ensuring digital continuity and common standards between aerospace product manufacturers, OEMs and the (multi-tier) supply chain and enabling a new form of collaborative, data-based value creation.

Our study explores the design and implementation of DMPs across aerospace but various industries as well, highlighting how digitalization of material information not only enhances product quality but also aligns with sustainability objectives. We address the technical and regulatory challenges in developing standardized digital material passports and present a framework for their integration into existing digital ecosystems. Using case studies, we demonstrate the potential of DMPs to increase quality, avoid falsification of material certificates respectively the use of non-qualified materials and components, increase transparency with respect to sustainability along the supply chains, support resource-efficient manufacturing, and enable compliance with evolving environmental regulations and OEM requirements.

The findings underscore that DMPs are not merely informational tools but essential enablers of sustainable supply chains, influencing design decisions, material and supplier choices, and recycling processes. As industries and policymakers increasingly prioritize sustainable practices, DMPs offer a scalable solution to manage resources responsibly and foster a more circular economy.