Digital Product Passport for greater sustainability
How sustainable are fasteners such as our HELICOIL® thread inserts today? And how can we make them even more sustainable or easier to recycle? To create more transparency and identify potential for improvement, we are working on a Digital Product Passport.
A sustainability project in close cooperation between science and industry
The Digital Product Passport, or DPP for short, is set to become mandatory for companies as a requirement of the European Union in the coming years. We have already been working intensively on this topic since 2024 in cooperation with renowned research partners. The Fraunhofer IEM, the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, and the University of Paderborn are involved in the ‘DualStrat – Strategic Management of the Dual Transformation’ project together with us, among others.
Fast forward to 2025, and we have jointly achieved an important interim goal. In the meantime, the very first Digital Product Passport has been created as a mock-up, i.e. as a realistic visualisation. Of course, it is for our best-known product, which is also one of the best-selling Böllhoff fasteners of all time: our HELICOIL® wire thread insert.
Strong and increasingly sustainable joints – with HELICOIL® from Böllhoff
For over 70 years, our HELICOIL® wire thread inserts in their different variants have been creating strong joints. Be it in the Eagle lunar module during the first moon landing in 1969, in modern aircraft engines or in today's wind turbines: whenever high-strength screw connections are required in materials with low shear strength, such as aluminium, our HELICOIL® reinforces the respective thread.
In various industries, these tiny inserts make lightweight construction possible – by enabling the use of lighter materials, for example, or allowing components to be downsized thanks to shorter threads. Even damaged threads can be repaired using the thread inserts, allowing the corresponding components to remain in use for longer. In other words: our HELICOIL® is an ideal companion for greater sustainability!
So, it’s high time to make HELICOIL® itself and other products even more sustainable. From raw material extraction in our upstream value chain to the finished fastener. Here, the Digital Product Passport provides us with valuable hints.
The Digital Product Passport: great opportunity rather than mere obligation
How was a product manufactured? From which raw materials? And how can it best be reused or recycled?
With the Digital Product Passport, we will be able to bundle relevant sustainability information on fasteners such as our HELICOIL® in one place in future. The aim is always to achieve greater transparency along the entire value chain, from raw materials to the finished fastener.
The comprehensive, clearly structured data in the Digital Product Pass not only provides greater transparency for our customers. It also enables us to better identify potential areas where we can make our products more sustainable – for example, by using alternative raw materials. The DPP thus offers a great opportunity to tie economy and sustainability even more closely together.
»"By consolidating technical data and sustainability information in one place in the product passport, we offer customers and partners comprehensive insight into the origin and lifecycle of our products. This enables us to identify previously untapped sustainability potential even more effectively."
Providing insights into our product passport at the Digital Sustainability Summit 2025
In mid-May 2025, we shared our experiences from the product passport pilot project with interested attendees at the Digital Sustainability Summit 2025, organised by the well-known digital association Bitkom. The summit addressed the question of how the ‘twin transition’ – the combination of green and digital transformation – can be achieved.
Together with our research partners, Dr Caroline Besse, Material Data and Compliance Manager at Böllhoff, provided insights into practice in the in-depth presentation ‘DPP – from idea to impact’. Challenges in the practical implementation of product passports were also examined in detail. The lively exchange provided further ideas that we were able to incorporate into our next steps following the pilot project.
About the Digital Product Passport (DPP)
The Digital Product Passport is part of the European Union's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, or ESPR for short. This regulation sets requirements to make products more durable, repairable, reusable and recyclable. The Digital Product Passport is intended to ensure greater transparency and traceability by providing reliable sustainability data for consumers, businesses and authorities.
From mid-2026, the product passport will be gradually introduced in the EU, depending on the industry and product sector. With our pilot project in 2024 and the upcoming inclusion of further products in the passport in 2025, we are preparing ourselves for these increasing requirements at an early stage.
