As the consumption sector of 4^th highest polluting industry with impacts on the environment depression and climate change, 3^rd  sector for high water consumption and land use and  5^th for the use of primary raw materials and greenhouse gas emission in the EU, not surprisingly textile has become the industry on which the EU has put a lot of their efforts and focus for enforcement of European Green Deal, and the most noteworthy is EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles. 

This strategy is part of 35 actions under the Circular Economy Action Plan, was announced by European Commission on 30 March 2022 and is currently implemented through specific measures, policies.

Objectives

EU designed this Strategy as a comprehensive, consistent program for green and sustainable transition of textile industry with objectives:

- By 2030, all textile products placed on the EU markets are durable, repairable and recyclable, free of hazardous substances;

- EU consumers benefit longer from high quality affordable textiles products;

- Making fast fashion out of fashion, and profitable re-use and repair services are widely available

Contents

This Strategy set out a series of actions for impacts on the entire life cycle of textile products in the ecosystem of green and digital transition, including:

- Designing textiles with green criteria (requirements for the inclusion of recycled fibers in textiles, durability, repairability and recyclability, ban of the destruction of unsold textiles);

- Clearer information on textiles and a Digital product passport (mandatory information on recyclability and environment factors of the products);

- Tighter controls on greenwashing;

- Effective tackle of the unintentional release of microplastics from textiles (including production process, industrial washing, labelling, usage, etc);

- Harmonizing EU rules on extended producer responsibility for textiles, and economic incentives to make products more sustainable;

- Setting up a transition pathway for the textiles ecosystem by 2030.

Implementation in practice

After the announcement of the Strategy for circular and sustainable textile, the EU introduced different initiatives to materialize targets set out in this Strategy as well as the circular economy action plan, including some noteworthy measures directly related to textiles imported to the EU:

• Proposal for Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation

- Progress: this Proposal was introduced on 30 Mar 2022 and is currently under review for approval to take effect.

- Targets: this Regulation aims to ensure all products manufactured or sold at the EU markets must comply with technical sustainable standards.

- Scope: this Regulation is designed to be applicable to many kinds of products, including electronics, IT, textiles, interior furniture and other intermediary products with high impacts on the environment such as steel, cement, chemicals, etc.

- Content: For textiles products, in this Regulation, the EU is expected to build and apply mandatory rules on specific ecodesign for products to improve the efficiency of textiles of durability, reusability, reparability, recyclability and mandatory minimum content of recycled fibers, reduce and monitor hazardous chemical substances in textiles; require to publish information of disposal and destruction of textiles, consider to ban the destruction of unsold or returned products

Also within this framework, the EU also sets mandatory criteria relating to green public procurement in the EU and conditions for preferential treatments of Member States in procuring textiles. 

• Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability

- Progress: This Strategy was published on 14 October 2020 and is the policy framework directing for later specific measures. 

- Targets: toward a toxic-free environment with higher human health and environmental protection. The new content of this Strategy is the “safe and sustainable-by-design” approach, taking into account toxicity of chemicals in all periods of product existence – from production to usage, recycling and disposal to prevent toxic chemicals from entering the products from the design stage. 

- Content and scope: Boosting the ban of the most harmful chemicals (especially endocrine disruptors) in consumer products such as cosmetics, toys, detergents, detergents, baby care products, interior furniture, textiles or food contact materials, etc. except when the use is essential for society operations or if there are no feasible alternative solutions.

- In practice: Some specific measures have been planned for implementation of this Strategy, for example, expected revision of EU Regulations on Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH), which includes regulations related to hazardous substances in textiles.

• Textile Labelling Regulation

- Progress: Proposal for Revision of Textile Labelling Regulation is expected to be announced the European Commission at the end of 2023

- Content: Supplementing new rules on physical and digital labeling for textiles, focusing on sustainability and circularity based on requirements of the Ecodesign for sustainable products regulations that will be issued.

• Proposal for Green Claims Directive

- Progress: The proposal was announced on 22 March 2023, and is currently under review for approval to take effect. 

- Targets: Eliminating misleading or confusing information about the environmental impact of a product (greenwashing) through regulations to ensure environmental labels and claims on products are reliable, comparable and verifiable throughout the EU, thereby allowing consumers to make smart purchasing choices.

- Content: This Directive (i) defines clear criteria for the method that manufacturers must use to demonstrate environmental labels and claims on products; (ii) stipulates that claims and labels of manufacturers must be verified by an independent and recognized verification agency; (iii) provides regulations on managing environmental labelling program to ensure transparency and reliability for consumers.

• Proposal on a targeted amendment of the Waste Framework Directive

- Progress: The proposal was announced on 5 July 2023, and is currently under review for approval by the EU authority agencies.

- Purpose: Increasing the responsibility of manufacturers for the entire life cycle of textile products, promoting sustainable textile waste management in the EU, and motivating manufacturers to improve durability, recyclability, and reducing textile waste.

- Content: Textile manufacturers will have to be partially or fully financial responsible for the treatment of waste from the use of their products by paying a corresponding fee to the country where the waste is to be treated.

• . Other green policies

- The EU has implemented several policies to reduce pollution in textile production, including: (i) revising the Industrial Emissions Directive; (ii) reviewing the Best Available Techniques (BAT) Reference Document (BREF) for the textiles industry; (iii) launching the Textiles Ecosystem Transition Pathway; and (iv) initiating action programs to change the overproduction and overconsumption of textiles, such as #ReFashionNow, European Bauhaus, and the Commitment to Sustainable Consumption, etc.

- Some other green policies that are not yet applied to Vietnam’s textiles exporting to the EU may be expanded to this product group in the future.   

A typical example is Carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM). Currently, CBAM fist stage is only applied to 06 goods groups including iron and steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizer, electricity, and hydrogen. However, the EU has plans to review the results of CBAM implementation with the above 06 industries in 2030 and then decide whether to expand CBAM to other products, at least with about 30 high-risk product groups causing pollution, including textiles.  

Besides CBAM, other policies, especially those within the Circular Economy Action Plan framework (chemicals, waste, etc.) may also be added by the EU in the future, which will then affect textiles.

Source: Report "EU Green Deal and Vietnam's Exports - The case of the agricultural, food and textile industries" – Center for WTO and International Trade

• Ways of European Green Deal’s impacts on Vietnam’s exports
• EU Green Deal and Vietnam's export: Impacted sectors
• EU Green Deal and Vietnam's export: Challenges of awareness change and enhancement
• EU Green Deal and Vietnam's export: Challenge in capability of response, compliance
• EU Green Deal and Vietnam's export: Challenge in the capacity of paying compliance fees