Linking digital product passports and digital building logbooks: Socio-Technical challenges and a pathways for integration

This study identifies socio-technical challenges and enablers in integrating Digital Product Passports (DPPs) into Digital Building Logbooks (DBLs) and develops a guiding framework. While both instruments advance with overlapping sustainability objectives at the policy level, their effective integration remains unresolved. Adopting a qualitative multiple-case study, we investigated four European DBL initiatives from Germany, the UK, France and Belgium through semi-structured interviews triangulated with secondary sources. Findings show that integration barriers are less technical than semantic, procedural, and organizational. Key challenges include absent ontologies and structured data, unclear responsibilities and weak incentives, and digital fatigue, low awareness, and role ambiguity. Enabling factors highlight regulatory support, market incentives, and user-centered design. We propose that DBLs should function as Systems of Systems, with four interdependent enablers, namely, regulation, standardization, interoperability, and simplicity as prerequisites for scalable, effective DPP–DBL integration. The framework informs policy, industry, and sustainability transitions in the built environment. • Provides a comprehensive overview of digital passport initiatives in the EU • Identifies socio-technical barriers to DPP–DBL integration across four cases • Proposes DBLs as Systems of Systems for scalable DPP integration • Defines four enablers: regulation, standardisation, interoperability, simplicity • Offers policy and practice recommendations to support digitalisation and circularity