European Union

Some 3000 chemical and 300 textile industry plants in the EU will have to comply with new legal norms adopted under the EU Industrial Emissions Directive to reduce their environmental impact.

The European Parliament has reached an EU Regulation on deforestation-free supply chains. Once adopted and applied, this law is intended to ensure that a set of key goods placed on the EU market will no longer contribute to deforestation and forest degradation in the EU and elsewhere in the world. Environmental organisations, however, have pointed out loopholes in the proposed law.

The European Council has approved the corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) which means that companies will soon be required to publish detailed information on sustainability matters.

Fast fashion giant Shein finds itself in the dock yet again as tests on its products by Greenpeace Germany reveal hazardous chemicals that break EU regulatory limits.

A new project, Circular Economy Innovative Initiative for an Entrepreneurial Europe (CITE), aims to create a new dynamic and agile ecosystem in and between higher education institutions that will boost textile circularity and circular economy in innovation and entrepreneurial courses.

EURATEX has released a position paper on the European Commission's proposal for a Directive on corporate sustainability due diligence. It has pointed out many lacunae in the proposal, and said that smaller players in supply chains could feace the brunt.

The proposed PEFCR (Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules) for apparel and footwear will benefit brands the most, while manufacturers, particularly SMEs, will have to bear the burden. The fallacy has been pointed out in a EURATEX position paper, which also underlined that exisiting limitations can lead to misleading results. 

The European Commission (EC) is set to outline the role it sees for product comparison rules based on the PEF-CR (Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules) in a legislative proposal on substantiating green claims, planned for release on 30 November. However, there are big loopholes in the process which can lead to misleading claims by the fashion industry.

A new industry alliance has argued that mandatory due diligence needs to be well-designed to promote the creation of an EU-wide level-playing field, and should capture the responsibility of companies to respect human rights and the environment in their supply chain as formulated in the OECD Guidelines.

A new research paper estimates how Brexit has affected goods trade between the United Kingdom and European Union. Using product-level trade flows between the EU and all other countries in the world as a comparison group, the study finds a sharp decline in trade from the UK to the EU and significant but smaller reductions in trade from the EU to the UK.