What do I do with electronics inventory that is already in place when the rules take effect?

What you must concretely do

What is expected of you

The ESPR regulates in Article 18 how the European Commission works on prioritisation and planning per product group: which product categories are first to be subject to a delegated act, and at what point the requirements for that category become concrete. For electronics and ICT equipment, this means that the obligation to provide a digital product passport does not come into effect all at once for all products, but per subcategory, at a time to be established via a delegated act. What this means for inventory depends on the moment at which a product is placed on the market in relation to the date on which the requirements for that subcategory come into effect — a date which, for electronics at the time of writing, does not yet exist.

Knowing when the requirements for your product category come into effect

For a company with inventory, the first practical task is not legal, but administrative: keeping track of which subcategory of electronics or ICT equipment comes into effect when. Article 18 of the ESPR describes how the Commission will work this out in phases and per product group. This means that an importer of, for example, domestic appliances may have a different implementation date than an importer of telecommunications equipment. A company with 10 to 100 employees does well to register per product line which category it falls under and which delegated act applies to it, as soon as that is published. Companies without this overview often discover too late that part of their assortment already falls under the new requirements and another part does not.

Determining whether "placing on the market" falls before or after the implementation date

Article 1 of the ESPR describes the subject matter and scope of the regulation: the requirements apply to products placed on the market. For inventory already on hand, it is therefore relevant at what point a product is actually placed on the market — not at what point it was manufactured or purchased. For a company, this means that inventory already in the warehouse but not yet sold or delivered may in principle fall within the scope of the new requirements as soon as those requirements come into effect for the relevant subcategory. At this time, there is no published delegated act for electronics that establishes this moment, so a statement on how existing inventory is handled during the transition cannot be made here without that source.

Structuring inventory management by category and by moment of placing on the market

For the practice of a medium-sized company, this primarily means: structuring inventory administration so that for each batch it is clear which product category it belongs to and when it is expected to be placed on the market. This is an organisational step that is separate from the question of whether the delegated act already exists. Companies that put this in order now will have less work when the date for their category is actually established. A good starting point for this is described on the page about what you can already do while the rules are not yet definitive.

Where things go wrong in practice

Inventory is treated as a single whole. An importer with different product lines — for example small kitchen appliances and telecommunications equipment — treats all inventory as one block, while the subcategories may each have their own timeline according to Article 18 of the ESPR. As a result, action is taken unnecessarily early for one line and too late for another.

Confusion between production date and date of placing on the market. A manufacturer assumes that inventory produced before a certain date falls outside the new requirements. However, Article 1 of the ESPR links the scope to the moment of placing on the market, not to the production date. This difference is particularly relevant for inventory that remains in storage for a long time.

No visibility on which subcategory applies. Companies importing both large appliances and smaller ICT peripherals often do not know for certain which subcategory a specific product falls under. Without that overview, it is impossible to determine when a delegated act becomes relevant for that inventory. The question does the digital product passport apply to my electrical and electronic equipment is the starting point here.

Inventory is rapidly marked down or disposed of due to uncertainty. Some companies decide, as a precaution, to quickly sell or destroy existing inventory before there is clarity on an implementation date. Or whether destruction of unsold inventory is even necessary and what is relevant in that regard is described on the page about destroying unsold electronics inventory — this is a different question from the question about the product passport, and the two are quite often confused in practice.

No plan for the transition period itself. Even when a company does know that the requirements will apply in due course, a concrete plan for the period in between is often lacking: who does what, at which moment, with which inventory. That plan belongs in a broader approach, as described in planning the implementation of the product passport in the organisation.

What you can document

• An overview per product line of the subcategory it falls under, and the expected delegated act that will apply to it.
• A registration of inventory batches with the date of manufacture and the expected or actual date of placing on the market, so that the difference between the two remains clear.
• An internal note on the status of the delegated act per category, with a fixed reference to the official source, so that changes are not missed.
• Agreements with suppliers or importers about who provides which data once a product passport becomes mandatory for a category — a good time to also determine who tackles this step by step, as elaborated on the page how do I approach the product passport for electronics step by step.
• An overview of which product lines are due at the same time, relevant for companies with multiple categories in inventory, as discussed in arranging the product passport for multiple product lines at the same time.
• A log of internal decisions about inventory management in the run-up to the implementation date, so that in a later inspection it can be demonstrated which considerations were made and at what point.