What can I already do while the rules are not yet final?

What you must concretely do

What is expected of you

The delegated act for electronics and ICT equipment does not yet exist. This does not mean there is nothing to do — the ESPR itself already provides direction on what will come per product category, and that direction is useful for planning now.

Follow the prioritisation per product category

Article 18 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) sets out how the European Commission prioritises and schedules product categories for delegated acts. For a company with 10 to 100 employees, this means above all: following which category is due when, rather than waiting for an announcement that suddenly arrives at the door. Electronics and ICT equipment are on the schedule, divided by subcategory. Anyone who now knows which subcategory their products fall into can follow that schedule with purpose instead of having to keep up with the entire ESPR agenda.

Bring your own supply chain into order

Article 38 of the ESPR addresses the requirements for actors in the supply chain: everyone who supplies parts, materials or information that ultimately end up in the product passport takes on a role. For a mid-sized company, this means the question "which supplier supplies which data" can be answered now, even without the exact data fields being fixed. In practice, this amounts to inventorying suppliers, checking whether they can provide data on materials, origin and composition, and laying down agreements to that effect — even if for now it is still based on an assumption about what will come.

Keep track of your own product structure

Although this is not literally stated in the articles as a separate obligation, it follows from the design of the ESPR that a company must be able to indicate which product belongs to which category and which variants exist. For companies with multiple product lines, this is a separate task: not every model will necessarily receive the same passport later, and the categorisation partly determines when the obligation comes into force. Mapping this out now saves having to do it later under time pressure. An overview of how to tackle this for multiple product lines at the same time can be found in how do I arrange the product passport for all my product lines at once.

Where things go wrong in practice

Wait until the delegated act is published. Companies that only start once the text is final discover that gathering supplier data and setting up internal processes takes more time than the period between publication and when the obligation comes into force.

Have no insight into your own supply chain. Some companies do not know exactly which supplier delivers which part, let alone whether that supplier can provide data on materials or composition. This only becomes apparent when the passport actually has to be put together — too late to sort it out calmly.

Think that the passport is an IT project that is separate from the organisation. In practice, the passport touches procurement, quality, sales and sometimes customer service too. Companies that treat this as a one-off technical task run into problems as soon as employees receive questions from customers or regulators. How to divide this within the organisation is addressed in how do I teach my employees to work with the product passport.

Make no distinction between product lines. Some companies treat their entire assortment as a single entity, whereas the categorisation into subcategories can make a difference in timing and content. This leads to unnecessary work for products that are not yet due, and to delays for products that must comply quickly.

Make no preparations for inspection. Even without final rules, it can already be useful to know what a regulator normally asks for when inspecting electronics, in order to see whether your own records already align with that. See what does a regulator ask for when inspecting electronics for an idea of that.

What you can document

• An overview of your own product categories and subcategories, linked to the schedule from Article 18 of the ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781).
• A supplier list with per supplier the question of whether and how they can provide data on materials, origin and composition, in line with the role that Article 38 of the ESPR assigns to supply chain actors.
• Internal agreements on who within the company is responsible for the passport per product line — procurement, quality, or a designated coordinator.
• A general timeline for implementation, even though the start date is not yet fixed. A guideline for this can be found in how do I plan the implementation of the product passport in my organisation.
• A first estimate of the costs involved in the implementation, so that this does not come as a surprise once the obligation becomes concrete; see what does a digital product passport for electronics cost.
• A step-by-step plan for your own organization, based on the general approach described in how do I approach the product passport for electronics step by step.

None of this preparatory work is mandatory as long as the delegated act has not been published. However, it is work that, once done, does not need to be repeated once the final rules are in place.