Matthew Eckholm, DPP specialist at Protokol, breaks down three critical compliance milestones for the furniture industry in light of the EU’s ESPR.
In mid-2024, the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) entered into force and was originally seen as a distant sustainability policy, but quickly became a pressing priority for the furniture industry. With a focus on making sustainable products the standard across the EU, many furniture manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers set to be impacted have spent months trying to decipher the complexity of the legislation and understand its implications over the coming years.
The regulation applies to any business placing furniture or related components on the EU market, with compliance requirements centring on the introduction of Digital Product Passports (DPPs). These passports are expected to capture details such as material composition, sourcing, repairability, and recyclability – core issues for a sector under growing pressure to extend product lifecycles and reduce waste.
With its uniquely complex supply chain considerations and added scrutiny it receives due to its high environmental impact, the furniture sector has a particularly extensive task ahead when it comes to compliance.
To support furniture businesses that want to stay ahead of the regulations, we’ve mapped the three key action points they need to have on their radars in the coming year.
Action 1: The publication of the ESPR and Energy Labelling Working Plan 2025-2030 (Released in April 2025)
After the ESPR came into force in July 2024, there has been a long wait for the next official news on the task for businesses across priority sectors.
After a lengthy period, in April this year, the ESPR’s first Working Plan was published, outlining its improvement expectations for the furniture sector, including improving resource use and the impact of production.
The Working Plan says that every product for which ecodesign measures will have to be adopted will have a DPP (a digital record of information about the product), to open up product information access to consumers, businesses, and public authorities.
Knowing at this stage that this will be a mandatory requirement means that businesses can begin to focus on strategies focused on finding where data that may be needed resides, to exploring the offering of DPP solution providers.
Action 2: The delegated acts (Likely by 2028)
The EU is expected to outline the delegated acts (product-group-specific acts, including guidelines concerning data requirements for DPPs) soon. The dates for the delegated acts will vary depending on the industry and product group. For the furniture industry in particular, these are likely to be established by 2028.
The exact requirements for each industry are expected to include the specifications for the data to be collected and made available. For furniture businesses, this could be material sources or information on resale and recyclability.
Well-prepared organisations at this point will have identified the location of all relevant data within their business or supply chain, developed an implementation plan, and positioned themselves to begin piloting initiatives in collaboration with a trusted partner.
Action 3: Getting compliance ready (18 months after the delegated is released)
Compliance is expected to be up to 18 months from the publication of each of the delegated acts; however, the EU can shorten this period if it is well justified, for example, through environmental urgency or alignment with other policies. Following the delegated acts coming into force, the UK furniture industry will be in a good position to learn from their pilots and be more confident in their DPP Implementation plan to achieve compliance.
Furniture businesses can also learn from sectors further along in the process, such as iron and steel (with a delegated act expected in 2026) or textiles (set for 2027), to understand what strategies have worked well. Although the compliance deadline is still a few years away, each milestone offers an important opportunity to get ahead and build a clear path toward regulatory readiness.
