> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL. > For a complete documentation index, see https://tieback.io/docs/llms.txt. > For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://tieback.io/docs/_mcp/server. # Lesson 1: Framework Plus Delegated Act > Academy Foundations Module 5 Lesson 1: how ESPR splits into a framework regulation and per-product delegated acts, and why each part fixes a different problem. **Module 5, Lesson 1 of 4. About 9 minutes.** ## Orientation Somebody in your organisation has probably already asked "what does ESPR require of us" and been handed an answer with a level of confidence the question does not deserve. ESPR is not one thing that requires anything of a specific product. It is a framework, and frameworks by design leave the detail to something else. Learning where that split falls, and learning it precisely, is what stops you from either dismissing the regulation as vague or panicking at a requirement that has not actually been written yet. This lesson gives you the split. The next three lessons build on it: how the missing half gets written, why being in force is not the same as applying to your product, and what you can safely do before the missing half exists. The identifier had to remain stable and the record reachable, independent of any particular carrier, page or hosting decision. Module 4 treated that as an immutability requirement on the data layer, not a requirement on any one piece of technology. Keep that distinction in mind here: a framework regulation is stable in the same way, and the product specific detail is the layer that is expected to change. ## Learning Objectives A tieback framework that shows ESPR moving from a framework regulation, through delegated acts per product group, to obligations that bite on a named product on a named date, and eventually to market surveillance and revision. **Use it when** someone asks "are we covered by ESPR" as if the answer were binary, or when a programme needs a shared picture of which stage the regulation is actually at for a given product family. **Where it fails:** it describes sequence, not content. It will not tell you which product groups are prioritised or what a given delegated act says. For that you still need the working plan and the act itself, read directly. ## Two Documents, Two Jobs ESPR itself is a framework regulation. It does a specific, limited set of things: it defines what a Digital Product Passport is, it sets out the categories of requirement the Commission may impose (performance requirements such as durability or recycled content, and information requirements such as a passport), it establishes the machinery, the registry, the enforcement route, and it grants the European Commission the power to go further. What it does not do is tell any single product what it must contain, or when. That half is delegated, product group by product group, to a second instrument: the delegated act. Read that split as a division of labour rather than a gap. The framework is written to last for decades, so it is deliberately general. It answers "what kind of thing may be required, of whom, and by what process." The delegated act is written for one product group at a time, so it can be specific: it answers "what exactly, for this product, and from when." A framework that tried to answer both questions in one document would either be too rigid to survive a decade or too vague to enforce. **The common misreading** is to treat the framework's existence as the obligation. People report that "ESPR applies to us" as though that settles the matter, when in fact the framework applying and a product group having a live obligation are two different facts, established by two different documents. The framework being in force tells you the power exists. It tells you nothing about whether that power has been exercised for your product yet, which is the subject of the next two lessons. For the Aurelia S2, this split matters immediately because the trimmer, its battery and its textile strap sit in different regulatory conversations at different stages of the same journey. The framework treats all three as potentially in scope. Whether any one of them currently carries a concrete requirement is a delegated act question, not a framework question, and the honest answer today may be "not yet decided" for one component and "already decided" for another. #### [What is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR)?](/docs/knowledge-base/regulations/what-is-the-ecodesign-for-sustainable-products-regulation-espr) Read the Definition and How ESPR Works sections closely, then the Implementation Journey section, which is the canonical description of TBF-005. #### Splitting the S2 question in two The question arrives as: "Does ESPR require a passport for the S2?" Split it before answering. Framework question: does ESPR give the Commission power to require a passport for a cordless power tool? Yes, that power exists for physical goods generally, subject to the excluded categories. Delegated act question: has that power been exercised for this product group, with a published act naming its scope, its data fields and its date of application? That is a separate check, and it is the one that actually determines whether there is anything to do today. Answering the compound question in one breath is how a "not yet" gets reported to a steering group as "no" or, worse, as "yes." #### Split your own question in two Take whatever you were last told about your product and ESPR. Write it as two separate sentences: one about the framework's power, one about whether a delegated act has actually exercised that power for your product group. If you cannot write the second sentence with a source, you have found the actual open question. ## Knowledge Check ## Takeaways * ESPR is a framework: it defines terms, grants power and builds machinery, but does not itself impose product specific requirements. * The delegated act is where the specific content lands: which products, which data, which date. * "ESPR applies to us" and "a delegated act requires this of our product" are two different claims. * The Aurelia S2's three components can each sit at a different point in this structure. **If you remember one thing:** a framework in force is a power switched on, not a duty switched on. ## Sources [What is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR)?](/docs/knowledge-base/regulations/what-is-the-ecodesign-for-sustainable-products-regulation-espr), sections Definition, How ESPR Works and The ESPR Implementation Journey. ## Related Docs * [Lesson 2: How a Delegated Act Becomes an Obligation](/docs/academy/foundations/module-5/lesson-2) * [Module 5 overview](/docs/academy/foundations/module-5) * [What is the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR)?](/docs/knowledge-base/regulations/what-is-the-ecodesign-for-sustainable-products-regulation-espr) * [tieback Frameworks](/docs/knowledge-base/frameworks/overview)