An Analysis of Critical Success Factors and Barriers to the Implementation of the Digital Product Passport in the Textile Supply Chain: The MagnoLab Case Study

The textile industry has always been a major source of environmental and social impacts, considering greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, massive waste production and labor exploitation. All this has prompted European regulators to introduce new and more stringent regulations with the aim of promoting sustainability and circularity, encouraging a transition towards increasingly green production models. Among the tools emerging in this scenario, the Digital Product Passport (DPP) aims to improve traceability and information management throughout the product life cycle. Through the integration of accessible and verifiable digital data, DPP fosters transparency in the supply chain, recycling and reuse of materials, improves regulatory compliance and gets consumers and companies more involved in the green transition. However, its implementation in the textile sector presents numerous technical, economic and organizational challenges and critical issues. This thesis analyses precisely the critical success factors and barriers in the adoption of DPP, taking as reference the case study of MagnoLab, an innovative hub that brings together several companies in the textile supply chain with the aim of developing sustainable and digital solutions for the sector. With a purely qualitative approach based on interviews with sustainability experts and a thematic analysis of the data collected, the research identifies some key factors such as regulatory support, technological maturity and collaboration between stakeholders, but also some obstacles such as the complexity of standardization, data management and economic constraints. In addition to highlighting the main obstacles and success factors, this research offers an insight into textile companies that are about to adopt digital traceability solutions to complete the transition to a more transparent and circular economy. The results of the study also aim to contribute to academic literature by providing an in-depth and up-to-date analysis of the opportunities and critical issues arising from the adoption of the Digital Product Passport in the textile sector. In a context where everything revolves around the ecological and digital transition, the DPP is certainly an essential tool as well as a strategic priority to foster a more sustainable, transparent and circular economy.