Duggan, Fergal & Bichet, Emma (2023, December 6) Provisional Agreement Reached on Groundbreaking New Products Law: EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. Cooley. https://products.cooley.com/2023/12/06/provisional-agreement-reached-on-groundbreaking-new-products-law-eu-ecodesign-for-sustainable-products-regulation/

 

This article helps demonstrate the EU Ecodesign law that was recently signed that affects fashion items (among many other items). The law was originally proposed in March 2022 to repeal and replace the existing Ecodesign Directive. This law will apply to everything sold on the EU market (food, fashion, motor vehicles, some medicine). All products under this law must be durable, reusable, repairable, and energy efficient. They are also releasing a digital EU passport (which can help reduce the use of paper). This law also bans the destruction of unsold goods such as clothing and requires companies to publish the amount of unsold goods they have produced each year.

 

This law (though not specifically focused on fashion) dramatically affects the fashion industry in the EU. The banning of destruction of overproduced items and mandated publishing of the amount of overproduced items will dramatically affect these business’s models if these anti-environmental actions are now put under the spotlight.  Hopefully business that are exposed by this law will be “canceled” and less supported by consumers due to their blatantly harmful environmental tactics. This is also one of the most aggressive environmental laws I have seen in recent years; I hope to see other countries follow suit.