Every year, between 4 and 9 percent of textiles placed on the EU market are destroyed before anyone ever wears them. The European Commission puts the annual volume at between 264,000 and 594,000 tonnes of clothing and footwear, burned, shredded, or sent to landfill while still new. Those destroyed goods generate around 5.6 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions per year, roughly equal to Sweden’s total net emissions in 2021. In France alone, around €630 million worth of unsold products are destroyed each year. In Germany, nearly 20 million returned items are discarded annually.
This has been standard industry practice, not a scandal. Overproduction has long been treated as a logistics and forecasting problem to be quietly solved at the back of the warehouse, away from public view.
What changes on 19 July?
On 9 February 2026, the European Commission adopted two acts that put operational teeth into the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. From 19 July, large companies placing apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear on the EU market are legally prohibited from destroying unsold stock. The ban covers manufacturers, importers, distributors, and online platforms. Returned goods can also fall within scope.
The definition of destruction is broad. It includes deliberately damaging a product, sending it to landfill, or burning it for energy recovery. Shredding garments solely to recover fibres also counts as destruction under the regulation. The alternatives the law expects companies to pursue are resale, repair, remanufacturing, donation, and reuse.
The exemptions exist, but they are narrow
The Commission’s Delegated Act adopted in February 2026 lists ten exemptions. Destruction remains permitted where a product poses a safety or health risk, where it has been irreparably damaged, or where documented evidence shows that no viable alternative treatment was technically or economically feasible. Every exemption must be documented, and records must be kept for five years.
The Commission was explicit about the risk of companies routing stock through smaller entities to avoid the rules. The regulation allows for the scope to be extended to micro and small businesses in the future if evidence of circumvention emerges.
Who faces it now and who follows later?
Large companies, defined as those exceeding at least two of three thresholds: 250 or more employees, €50 million or more in annual revenue, or €25 million or more in total assets, face the ban from 19 July. Medium-sized companies, between 50 and 249 employees with turnover up to €50 million, have until 2030. Small and micro businesses are currently exempt.
Non-compliance carries significant consequences. National authorities can impose fines of up to 4 percent of EU turnover, product recalls, and market bans.
The reporting obligation already applies. Large companies are currently required to publish on their website, for each financial year, the number and weight of unsold products they have discarded, the reasons for destruction, the exemptions invoked, and the waste treatment operations used. The standardised reporting format becomes mandatory from February 2027, but the underlying data collection has to start now.
For the fashion sector, 19 July is not an end point. It is the beginning of a regulatory direction that will only tighten.
