Can I destroy unsold stock of products?

What you must do concretely

The ESPR (Regulation (EU) 2024/1781) addresses in Articles 23 to 26 something that stands apart from the digital product passport itself, but is closely linked to it: the prevention of destruction of unsold consumer goods. For a portion of the businesses that deal with digital product passports, this regulation thus operates on two fronts — the data requirements for the product, and the rules governing what may happen to a product if it is not sold.

What is expected of you

Transparency concerning unsold inventory

Article 24 of the ESPR requires certain businesses to publicly disclose how many unsold consumer goods they destroy and what has been done with them. For a business with 10 to 100 employees, this practically means that there must be records that track destroyed inventory as a separate category — not merely "written-off inventory" in the accounting, but specifically the batches that have been destroyed, with quantities and reasons. Without that registration, there is nothing to report when a disclosure obligation applies.

Possible prohibition on destruction for specific product groups

Article 23 of the ESPR provides the basis for establishing a prohibition on the destruction of unsold consumer goods for specific product groups. That prohibition does not apply automatically to all products; it is determined per product group through the delegated acts that also govern the digital product passport itself. For a business, this means that the question "may I destroy this" cannot be answered in general terms, but must be checked per product group. Clothing textiles and footwear are already mentioned in the regulation itself as an example of a sector where this is sensitive, but the final list of mandatory product groups follows from the implementing legislation.

Substantiating grounds for exemption

Article 25 of the ESPR sets out grounds on which an exemption from a destruction prohibition is possible, for example in the case of safety risks posed by the product. For a business that proceeds with destruction on the basis of such an exemption, this means that a file must exist that substantiates that decision — not as a formality afterwards, but as a record at the moment the decision is made. In an inspection, "we found it no longer saleable" is a different matter than a file containing a concrete safety assessment.

Reporting obligations based on threshold values

Article 24 of the ESPR links part of the obligations to the size of the business; micro and small enterprises are exempted in certain respects. For a business with 10 to 100 employees, this is a point to clarify precisely, because the business's own size determines whether the full obligation applies or a lighter form. This is not something to determine by intuition — the regulation itself works with formal definitions of enterprise size that do not correspond to the number of employees alone.

Where things go wrong in practice

A first situation that often arises: a business destroys a batch of returned goods because sales are no longer profitable, without checking whether the product group is meanwhile subject to a destruction prohibition. That prohibition is namely introduced per product group and per delegated act, often at the same time as the requirements for the digital product passport for that same group — those already following the latter sometimes still miss the former.

A second situation: there is no separate record of destroyed inventory, only an accounting write-off. At the moment disclosure is requested, it is then no longer possible to reconstruct how many units exactly were destroyed and why.

A third situation: an exemption ground is recorded only after the fact, following an inquiry from a supervisory authority, rather than at the moment of the decision itself. This makes the file vulnerable, even if the destruction was in fact justified.

A fourth situation: inventory that has been in storage for some time before the rules for a product group come into effect is not reviewed separately. The question what to do with stock already in place when the rules take effect suddenly becomes pressing at a moment when there is no time to work through it carefully.

A fifth situation: a company believes that the rules are only relevant if the digital product passport for its own product group is already mandatory, whereas articles 23 to 26 have their own timeline and their own delegated acts, separate from the data carrier obligation.

What you can document

• An overview per product group of whether a destruction ban applies or will apply, with the source in the relevant delegated act.
• A separate record of destroyed unsold stock: quantities, date, product group, and reason for destruction.
• A file for each exception case, drawn up at the time of the decision, with the concrete ground from article 25 of the ESPR that is deemed applicable.
• A check of the company's own enterprise size against the definitions used by the regulation, to determine which obligation of article 24 applies.
• A procedure for returns and surplus stock, so that destruction is not the default solution before alternatives have been considered.

This subject often touches on the same questions in practice as the rest of the digital product passport file. Anyone who still has to determine whether the digital product passport applies to their own products, would do well to combine that research with the question of whether there is also a destruction ban coming for the same product group — both follow from the same regulation and often from the same delegated act. And for anyone wondering what a competent authority actually requests during an inspection: what a competent authority requests during an inspection of products provides an idea of the kind of file that is expected, which also applies to the administration surrounding destruction and exceptions.