It ain't fashion, if it ain't sustainable

Tom Duhoux

Circularity / Europe Status

27 March 2025

4 minutes

Despite a 15% increase in consumption, absolute decoupling was achieved for GHG emissions (-24%) and raw material use (-22%).

Environmental and Climate Pressures From EU Textiles Consumption Remain High, Reports Call for Systemic Shift in Textiles System

To succeed with the EU’s textiles strategy, a systemic shift in the textiles system is needed, moving towards higher quality, longer use, reuse, repair and recycling. The European Environment Agency’s (EEA) new module of the Circularity Metrics Lab (CML) on textiles analysed 14 metrics and came up with some key findings.

Staff Writer

Textile Waste / E.U. Status Report

23 May 2024

3 minutes

There is an option for a transition to so-called ‘Ultimate Producer Responsibility’ (UPR) which relies on high product traceability from exporting to importing countries and should help improve accountability for product producers and distributors. EPR schemes must promote the adoption of reuse and repair practices. However, establishing large-scale repair operations in European countries is a challenge because of commercial non-viability.

Almost 3/4 of Textile Waste In EU Goes Unsorted

There is significant room for improvement in separate collection systems for waste textiles in EU-27 with about 11.6kg per person of textile waste ending up in mixed household waste.

Staff Writer

Textile Destruction / EU Overview

5 March 2024

4 minutes

The destruction of customer returns and unsold textiles have direct environmental and climate impacts. These arise from the processes of handling returns and unsold textiles, and the destruction itself. Importantly, there are also indirect impacts from their original production, even if they are never used.

Almost 9% of Textile Products Destroyed in Europe, Finds Study

Even as the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles seeks to stop the destruction of unsold and returned textiles, a new study has found that the volume of textiles and textile products destroyed in Europe can be as high as 594,000 tones every year, with lower range estimates pegged at 264,000 tonnes.