On 16 April 2025, the European Commission took an important step towards a more sustainable textile industry. On that day, the Ecodesign Sustainable Product Regulation (ESPR) Roadmap 2025-2030and one of the big players was clothing. Yes, textile products - especially clothing - are among the five key priorities in this new regulatory roadmap.
And why so much focus on fashion? Because its environmental impact is enormous: from the intensive use of water and energy to the generation of waste and emissions, the objective is clear: to change the current model for a more circular and responsible one. The objective is clear: to change the current model for a more circular and responsible one. How? Well, among other things, by obliging textile products to comply with a series of eco-design requirements. We are talking about criteria such as durabilitythe reparabilitythe minimum content of recycled materials or the resource efficiency. This will apply throughout the product life cycle: from raw material to end of life.
Another interesting development is the arrival of the Digital Product PassportThe idea is to create a kind of environmental ID card for the product, containing key information on its composition, environmental impact, reparability and recyclability, etc. The idea is to enable consumers, businesses and authorities to make more informed and sustainable choices.
PEFCR for fashion and footwear: a standardised framework for the fashion and footwear industry in Europe.
For all of the above to work, a clear and common way of measuring the environmental impact of products is needed. This is where the PEFCR (Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules) for clothing and footwear. This methodology, recently published, is based on the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and follows the ISO 14040 and 14044 standards. In short, it allows environmental impacts to be calculated in a standardised, rigorous and comparable way.
The PEFCR focuses on 16 environmental impact categories. Among them are the best known, such as the climate changethe WATER USE or the resource depletionbut also other less visible ones, such as the toxicity or the marine eutrophication. And, very importantly: for the first time, it officially incorporates the release of microfibres during product use (e.g. when washing clothes), an increasingly worrying impact.
The document includes specific rules for 13 types of productssuch as T-shirts, trousers, jumpers, coats and different types of footwear. For each, aspects such as functionality, how long the product lasts, how many times it is washed, what happens at the end of its useful life, etc. are taken into account. Indicators are also incorporated for circularityThe percentage of recycled material, repairability, wear resistance or recyclability.
Implementing the PEFCR involves collecting different types of data:
- Mandatory primary dataThe use of materials such as what materials are used, how much energy is consumed in manufacturing, how much is transported or how much of the product can be recycled.
- Optional primary dataThe product may be repaired, upgraded or reused.
- Secondary dataThe data are taken from a public database (EF 3.1), which can be used when no own information is available.
The PEFCR for fashion and footwear is a very useful tool for companies in the sector. It not only helps to understand and reduce the environmental impact of their products, but also facilitates communication with customers, distributors and regulators. Adopting it is a strategic step to prepare for what is to come: a more demanding market, more aware consumers and more ambitious European regulations. Better to start now than to run later.
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