All Blogs

Green regulation transforming fashion: for textile and footwear brands, it's time to adapt

by
Akhil
|
April 21, 2023
|
Data & transparency
Green Marketing
Legislation

One of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the fashion and textile industries have come under the strict radar of governments across the world. The industry uses 10% of the world’s water resources, employs energy-intensive manufacturing processes, and is widely contributing to the microplastic pollution problem. Read on to understand the different regulations that your brand will need to adapt to. 

France's Climate and Resilience Law:

Let us start with France. To achieve a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 France passed Climate and Resilience Law in July 2021. Here’s what that law says:

  • Goods and services to have environmental labelling
  • Brands to report their GHG emissions annually
  • Fines up to €15,000 if brands fail to comply

The law mandates environmental labelling so that customers can make more informed purchase decisions. Apart from the administrative fines, there is a huge reputational risk for brands who fall foul of the legislation. And it’s not just for French companies, it’s for any company selling into France!

 

Are you affected? Here’s how Green Story can help:

  • Easily develop a Product Passport which you can display as an environmental label using our platform
  • Back up your GHG claims with accurate figures, and roll it up based on sales for your entire collection
  • Work with experts in textile supply-chain like our Chief Sustainability Officer, Dr. Kannan Muthu, to help you achieve compliance

EU Green Claims Directive and EU Ecolabel:

The EU Ecolabel has existed for more than 30 years. While it’s started off as voluntary, in 2022, the EU took a huge step forward and under the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, started to standardize and authenticate Ecolabels in the market. The EU Green Claims Directive is a direct result of this. Expected to come into force from 2024, here’s what these two mean:

  • Claims must be substantiated by widely recognized scientific evidence
  • Any comparisons must be fair and based on equivalent information and data
  • Focuses on the entire product lifecycle.
  • Mandates brands to have a Digital Product Passport
  • Environmental labels must be transparent, verified by a third party, and regularly reviewed. 

Green Story’s platform and services are built to address this:

  • We use the ISO 14040/44 and ISO 14067 standards which are globally recognized and accepted: you can also easily switch to the EU Environmental Product Declaration Schemes (EPDs) at will.
  • You can ensure accurate data from raw material extraction to end-of-life with our supplier network and end-of-life modelling systems. We can even do custom work on circular business models as we have done with ThredUp and other major companies.
  • Our Digital Product Passport can integrate into QR codes, point of sale systems and any reporting platforms via our APIs and widgets!

 

Green Claims Code (UK):

In 2021, The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) from the UK published a Green Claims Code. The goal was to assist businesses in understanding and complying with existing consumer protection laws when it comes to making environmental claims. Here’s what it means to your fashion business:

  • Claims like eco-friendly must be backed up by LCA
  • 13-points checklist that brands should comply with
  • Failure to comply could lead to court proceedings (and they have already begun fines and proceedings)

Here’s how Green Story can help:

  • Ensure credible claims backed by our LCA reports and supply chain traceability
  • Marketing guidance for our clients to ensure they comply with any checklist
  • Following ISO standards to ensure any claims are future proof (and compatible with pan-European or global legislation)

 

The Fashion Sustainability and Social Accountability Act (US)

Under consideration in the New York State Assembly, this pioneering piece of legislation would affect all fashion retailers and manufacturers including apparel and footwear companies in New York with more than $100 million in revenue.

 

That means:

  • Brands need to develop an environment and social sustainability report with half their supply chains mapped.
  • Mandatory disclosure their Scope 1,2 and 3 emissions.
  • Failure to comply would result in heavy fines.

With the Green Story platform, brands can:

  • Easily map their supply chains all the way to fiber
  • Manage supplier networks and communications
  • Streamline data gathering and roll up into company level reporting based on unit sales and stagewise impact data per supply chain

 

Here's the TL;DR: 

To skip the fines and bad reputation, brands will have to invest today. Green Story is the thought leader in this space, as we have been working on this since 2015. We make it possible for brands to arrive at accurate figures and communicate them in a way that’s relatable for consumers. We do this by quantifying the impact of your brand using our sustainability platform through which we can derive data from the point of raw material extraction to the end-of-life of the product, manage supplier networks and communications, and streamline data gathering.

 

You can learn more by booking a demo here, or download our latest ebook here.