DPP fibre composition: wool, cotton, synthetic, and mixed materials

Every Digital Product Passport for a textile product will declare fibre composition. The field is the anchor for everything else in the passport: recycled content, end-of-life routing, chemical restrictions, care instructions, and durability claims all reference back to what the product is actually made of. This post covers the practical mechanics of declaring the four most common fibre situations: wool, cotton, synthetic, and mixed materials.

The regulatory baseline

EU Regulation 1007/2011 (the Textile Labelling Regulation) already requires fibre composition on textile products sold in the EU. Every fibre above 5% by weight must be named with its percentage, in descending order. The ESPR textile delegated act is expected to build on this base rather than replace it, adding recycled content percentage, source (pre-consumer or post-consumer), and end-of-life routing to the required disclosure.

Practical minimum for the DPP fibre field: named fibres, percentage per fibre, tolerance-compliant totals.

Wool

For 100% wool products, the declaration is simple: "100% wool" with a permitted 3% manufacturing tolerance under EU 1007/2011.

Common complications:

• Breed claims (Merino, Cashmere, Alpaca, Mohair) require evidence in the passport audit trail. A claim without evidence in the passport fails an audit query.
• Recycled wool is a legitimate fibre with its own supply-chain patterns. Recycled wool from pre-consumer sources (mill offcuts) differs from post-consumer sources (garment shredding). The passport should distinguish.
• Wool blends with synthetic trigger recycling stream questions. A wool-polyester blend cannot be recycled through pure wool streams. The passport should surface this so the end-of-life field is honest.

Wool certifications commonly declared: RWS (Responsible Wool Standard), GRS (Global Recycled Standard) for recycled wool, Woolmark.

Cotton

For 100% cotton products, declaration is straightforward. Complications live in the source:

• Organic cotton carries a certification (GOTS, OCS) that should attach as evidence in the passport
• Recycled cotton typically has short-fibre limitations; declare recycled percentage and source
• BCI (Better Cotton Initiative) cotton is mass-balance certified, meaning the physical fibre is not necessarily separated from conventional cotton. Declaration in the DPP should be honest about mass-balance vs physical segregation
• Country of origin for cotton is contested: fibre-grown-in-country vs fabric-woven-in-country vs garment-made-in-country. The DPP field typically records all three separately

Cotton certifications commonly declared: GOTS, OCS, BCI, Fairtrade, US Cotton Trust Protocol, CmiA (Cotton made in Africa).

Synthetic fibres

Synthetic covers polyester, polyamide (nylon), acrylic, elastane, polypropylene, and specialty fibres like PLA (bio-based polyester) and recycled polyester.

Key declaration rules:

• Recycled polyester is now the market default for sustainability-marketed brands. Declare recycled percentage and source (typically post-consumer PET from bottle recycling)
• Elastane and Lycra at 2-5% must still be declared because they affect recyclability
• PLA (polylactic acid) is bio-based but not necessarily compostable under industrial conditions; declare source (corn, sugarcane) and end-of-life routing honestly
• Regenerated fibres (viscose, modal, lyocell) are cellulosic, not synthetic under strict classification, and have their own declaration rules

Synthetic certifications commonly declared: GRS, RCS, Bluesign, OEKO-TEX Standard 100 for chemical safety.

Mixed materials (the most common real product)

Real garments are usually blends. A typical fashion product might be 60% cotton, 35% polyester, 5% elastane. The declaration:

• Named fibres in descending order by weight
• Percentages must total 100 within tolerance
• Every fibre above 5% named separately
• Fibres at or below 5% may be grouped as "other fibres" with aggregate percentage

For a multi-component product (a jacket with a shell, lining, filling, trims) the declaration is typically per component. The DPP field structure supports per-component declaration with a parent-product roll-up.

Country of origin nuances

Fibre origin, yarn spinning location, fabric weaving location, garment assembly location can all differ. The DPP is expected to require declaration of at least manufacturing country and often the tier-2 (fabric) country as well. Working from the ESPR draft field list, brands should be prepared to declare origin at multiple points in the supply chain, not just the assembly location.

Where Filovera fits

Filovera's fibre composition field supports per-component declaration, mass-balance certifications, recycled content sources, and multi-country origin. The audit trail records who submitted the data (mill, brand, third-party auditor) and when, so a regulator query about the basis of a fibre claim can be answered from the passport without a scramble.

For the broader UK textile compliance workload, see /uk/uk-textile-compliance-2026-checklist.

Fibre-composition rules differ by market as well as by material: the country-by-country DPP guide maps who asks for what.