Whose passport is it anyway? A decentralized web3-inspired architecture for sovereign digital product passports in the circular economy

Abstract The circular economy (CE) relies on active consumer participation in reuse, resale, and repair markets. Digital product passports (DPPs) offer a promising approach by providing verifiable product information. Yet, current research neglects the asymmetric information access in the CE, particularly the disadvantaged position of end consumers. Addressing this gap, we adopt a Design Science Research (DSR) approach to develop a decentralized, wallet-based DPP architecture designed to enable sovereign, long-term product data access. Our system combines digital wallets, verifiable credentials (VCs), and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to enable issuer-independent data transferability and dynamic ownership management. Decoupling data authenticity (via VCs) from ownership (via NFTs) allows product data to remain accessible and verifiable, even if issuers exit the market. The architecture is designed to enable consumers to act as long-term custodians of product information, with the aim of granting them sovereign control across ownership transitions. We introduce four generalizable design principles that advance prescriptive knowledge on decentralized, issuer-independent DPP architectures and their potential to support end consumer data sovereignty.