Technical Implementations Register

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Please note that this content is under development and is not ready for implementation. This status message will be updated as content development progresses.

This page describes how organisations that implement UNTP register their implementations and demonstrate conformance. UNTP is designed to facilitate interoperability between thousands of independent systems. Experience shows that interoperability standards without conformance tests tend to lead to interoperability failures. Therefore UNTP provides an implementations register and an interoperability testing service.

The premise of implementation governance is straightforward: an implementation becomes registered by passing the relevant interoperability tests and providing the required evidence. This applies equally to software platforms, conformity scheme owners, conformity assessment bodies, identifier registers, and community extension specifications. Each implementer type implements a different subset of the UNTP specifications, but the registration process is the same: meet the requirements, pass the tests, register, and report impact.

All registered implementers must:

• successfully complete interoperability testing for each major version of UNTP and each major version of their software, service, or specification. Test results are published with the implementation registration.
• report minimal performance measures as defined by the Impact Assessment Framework so that UNTP adoption and impact can be measured.

Software Platforms

Software platforms — including ERP systems, supply chain management tools, product lifecycle management systems, and specialist sustainability platforms — implement UNTP by issuing and verifying digital credentials on behalf of their customers (producers, manufacturers, brands, and traders).

A conformant software platform issues one or more of the following credential types:

Credential	Purpose
Digital Product Passport (DPP)	Product identity, characteristics, and sustainability claims
Digital Facility Record (DFR)	Facility identity, location, and sustainability performance
Digital Traceability Event (DTE)	Lifecycle events linking inputs to outputs across the supply chain

How to register a software implementation

Step	Action	Resources
1	Confirm business value — review the business case for your stakeholder type	Industry business case
2	Implement — build UNTP credential support into your software, or adopt a UNTP-compatible platform	Specification, Reference implementation
3	Test conformance — validate your credentials against the UNTP test service	Test service
4	Register — submit your implementation with passing test results	Software register
5	Report impact — provide performance metrics to track UNTP adoption	Impact Assessment Framework

Conformity Scheme Owners

Conformity scheme owners — including standards bodies, industry associations, and regulatory agencies — implement UNTP by publishing their conformity schemes, profiles, and criteria as machine-readable linked data vocabularies using the Conformity Vocabulary Catalog (CVC).

A conformant scheme owner publishes:

Artefact	Purpose
Conformity Vocabulary Catalog (CVC)	Machine-readable scheme definitions with criteria, scoring frameworks, and regulatory mappings

When scheme criteria are published as unique digital objects via the CVC, product passport claims can be unambiguously verified against conformity credentials and compared across different schemes.

How to register a conformity scheme

Step	Action	Resources
1	Review the CVC specification — understand how to structure your scheme, profiles, and criteria as linked data	CVC specification
2	Publish your vocabulary — make your scheme criteria available as referenceable URIs	Extensions methodology
3	Register — submit your scheme to the UNTP register	Scheme owners register

Conformity Assessment Bodies

Conformity assessment bodies (CABs) — including auditors, certifiers, testing laboratories, and inspection bodies — implement UNTP by issuing Digital Conformity Credentials that carry independently verified assessments of products, facilities, or organisations.

A conformant CAB issues:

Credential	Purpose
Digital Conformity Credential (DCC)	Independent, digitally verifiable assessments against published standards and regulations

Each credential carries the assessor's accreditation, the reference scheme and profile, measured performance metrics, and a conformance determination — giving downstream verifiers high-confidence evidence to support claims made in product passports and facility records.

How to register as a conformity assessment body

Step	Action	Resources
1	Review the DCC specification — understand the credential structure, assessment assurance levels, and evidence model	DCC specification
2	Implement — build DCC issuance into your assessment workflow, either directly or via a UNTP-compatible software platform	Software register
3	Test conformance — validate your credentials against the UNTP test service	Test service
4	Register — submit your implementation with passing test results	Implementations register

Identifier Registers

Identifier registers — including national business registers, product registries, facility cadastres, trademark offices, and accreditation authorities — implement UNTP by providing identity resolution and identity anchoring services.

A conformant identifier register implements:

Specification	Purpose
Identity Resolver (IDR)	Resolving identifiers to linksets that point to credentials and related data
Digital Identity Anchor (DIA)	Verifiable binding between a decentralised identifier (DID) and an authoritative registered identity

Together, these allow any party with an identifier (on a barcode, QR code, RFID tag, or in a document) to discover and verify credentials about the identified entity — and to confirm that credential issuers are who they claim to be.

How to register an identifier scheme

Step	Action	Resources
1	Review the IDR and DIA specifications — understand the resolver linkset model and identity anchor credential	IDR specification, DIA specification
2	Implement — add resolver and/or DIA issuance capabilities to your register	Reference implementation
3	Test conformance — validate your resolver responses and DIA credentials	Test service
4	Register — submit your identifier scheme	Registers register

Community Extensions

UNTP is deliberately designed to be industry and geography neutral because most supply chains cross industry and country boundaries. However, most industry sectors and jurisdictions need to extend UNTP with sector-specific product characteristics, conformity criteria, and business rules. Community extensions are themselves a kind of UNTP implementation — they add to the core specification rather than consume it — and are subject to the same registration, testing, and impact reporting requirements as other implementer types.

A registered community extension comprises:

Artefact	Purpose
Extension specification website	A public website with referenceable URIs documenting the extension's schemas, vocabularies, and rules
Extended JSON schemas and contexts	Industry-specific extensions of the UNTP credential schemas (e.g. a battery passport extending the DPP)
Extension test cases	Schema and trust-graph tests that complement the UNTP core tests

Registered extensions must:

• be freely available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license so that they can be re-used by other communities in the same sector — driving harmonisation across multiple extensions.
• comply with the extensions methodology so that the extension remains conformant with the UNTP core and interoperable with implementations based on other extensions.
• be version managed, with each extension version stating which UNTP major version it is derived from.
• be documented as a public website with referenceable URIs for each specification component.

How to create and register a community extension

Step	Action	Resources
1	Build the case — review the community activation program to understand stakeholder roles, scope of work, and funding options	Community Activation Program
2	Establish governance — form an extension governance group with representative membership and define the high-level scope	Extension governance rules
3	Engage with sectoral fora — discover existing extensions in your sector and identify opportunities for re-use and harmonisation	Sectoral Collaboration
4	Develop the extension — follow the extensions methodology to create your specification as a public website	Extensions methodology, Existing extensions as examples
5	Test conformance — validate that extended credentials still pass UNTP core tests and your extension-specific tests	Test service
6	Register — submit your extension with passing test results	Extensions register
7	Scale and measure — grow implementations across your community and report impact	Impact Assessment Framework

Extension development will often be part of the community activation program run by a member association.

Conformance Testing

Conformance testing is central to implementation governance for all implementer types. UNTP provides a three-tier test architecture that validates credentials at increasing levels of rigour:

Tier	What it tests	UNTP Core	Extension
Tier 1 — Technology	W3C Verifiable Credential compliance	All credential issuers	No additional requirements expected
Tier 2 — Schema	Schema validity for each credential type	UNTP core schemas	Extended credentials must validate against both core and extension schemas
Tier 3 — Trust Graph	Correct linking between DPP, DTE, DCC, DFR, and DIA credentials	Standard credential linking	Extension-specific choreography and linking rules

The key principle is that a credential conforming to a UNTP extension is also conformant with UNTP core. This ensures that credentials issued in a specific industry or geographical context remain understandable across industry or geographic boundaries.

The test service is available as a hosted test playground and as a locally deployable service.

Detailed implementation guidance for specific stakeholder types (producers, registry operators, conformity bodies, regulators) is also available on the Implementation Plans page.