The European Union generated approximately 6.94 million tons of textile waste in 2022, equivalent to around 16 kilograms per person, according to the European Environment Agency. At the same time, 85 percent of household textile waste was not separately collected, limiting opportunities for reuse and recycling.
These figures raise an uncomfortable question for the fashion industry. If sustainability has become such a prominent part of the conversation, why does so much textile waste remain outside systems that could give it another life?
As new European rules tighten expectations around environmental claims, brands will increasingly need to demonstrate what their sustainability commitments mean in practice.
EU Rules Target Green Claims
The era of simply describing a collection as sustainable is becoming harder to defend. Under the European Commission’s new rules on empowering consumers for the green transition, which apply from September 27, 2026, businesses face restrictions on generic environmental claims that cannot be substantiated, as well as certain future-facing claims that lack clear, verifiable commitments.
For fashion brands, this represents more than a change in marketing language. It challenges businesses to examine whether their environmental messaging reflects what is actually happening across product development, sourcing, manufacturing, and waste management.
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The pressure is unlikely to stop at advertising. The European Commission has identified textile apparel as a priority category under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, with an indicative timeline for adopting the relevant delegated act in the fourth quarter of 2027. The framework is expected to support the development of Digital Product Passports for textile products, bringing product-level information closer to the center of the regulatory conversation.
The direction is clear: environmental claims will need stronger foundations, and product information will matter more.
I have spent 35 years working across the fashion and sports industries, and I believe the challenge is not simply to communicate sustainability more effectively. It is to make better decisions about the products themselves. Materials, manufacturing processes, and waste are not separate from commercial performance. They are part of how a business designs, produces, and delivers its products.
A brand might promote the use of recycled materials in one collection, for example, while overlooking waste generated during sampling, cutting, or production. Another might make ambitious environmental commitments without clearly defining the changes needed to achieve them. In both cases, the language risks moving ahead of the operational reality.
That gap between what a business says and what it can demonstrate is where greater transparency becomes important.
I have described transparency as a new form of currency because trust depends on evidence. Consumers cannot independently verify every claim made about a garment, its materials, or its production. They rely on businesses to provide information that is clear, meaningful, and supported by credible evidence. When that information is vague or difficult to substantiate, sustainability messaging risks becoming another layer of branding rather than a reflection of actual progress.
This does not mean every business must achieve perfect sustainability before it can speak about improvement. Fashion supply chains are complex, and meaningful changes take time. It does mean that companies should be able to explain what they are changing, why they are changing it, and how they assess progress.
Designing Out Fashion Waste
That work can begin with decisions that might appear relatively small.
Material selection, product construction, and cutting patterns can all influence how much waste a product generates. Minimal Waste Design, which considers material efficiency during the design process, is one approach to addressing the problem before production begins. Rather than treating leftover material as an inevitable consequence of manufacturing, designers can examine how patterns and product components might be arranged to reduce unnecessary waste.
The principle is straightforward, but applying it consistently can require a shift in established working habits. Design teams may need to reconsider familiar processes, manufacturers may need to adapt production methods, and commercial teams may need to evaluate decisions beyond their immediate cost implications.
This is also where sustainability and business efficiency can overlap. Reducing unnecessary material use may help limit waste and make better use of purchased resources. The financial outcome will depend on the product, manufacturing process, and cost of implementation, but sustainability should not automatically be treated as an expense with no operational return.
The more useful question is where changes can deliver measurable environmental improvements while making commercial sense.
That requires businesses to look beyond individual products and consider how decisions connect across their operations. A material substitution, for example, should not be judged solely by its environmental reputation. Brands need to understand what the material contains, how it is sourced, how it performs, and what happens to the product at the end of its useful life. A claim about one attribute does not automatically establish that a product is sustainable overall.
The same principle applies to supply chains. Better information about sourcing and production can help businesses identify gaps between their stated commitments and their actual practices. It can also help them respond more confidently when regulators, retailers, or consumers ask for evidence.
However, transparency should not become a box-ticking exercise in which businesses collect information solely to satisfy a disclosure requirement. The value lies in what companies do with that information. If identifying waste does not influence design decisions, or if supply-chain data does not inform sourcing choices, greater visibility alone will have limited impact.
Nor should responsibility rest entirely with consumers. Shoppers can make more informed decisions when product information is clear, but they cannot be expected to investigate every environmental claim or resolve the structural challenges of textile waste themselves. Brands control many of the decisions that determine what gets made, which materials are used, and how products are manufactured.
Transparency Over Greenwashing
That places responsibility on businesses to make their claims understandable and their commitments credible.
For fashion and sports companies, the practical starting point is to examine what their sustainability statements actually promise. They should identify which claims can be substantiated, where evidence is missing, and which changes to product development or production could deliver meaningful progress. They should also be prepared to acknowledge limitations rather than present incremental improvements as complete solutions.
The regulatory environment is changing, but compliance should not be the only reason to take these questions seriously. The industry already faces substantial waste challenges, and better information is useful only if it supports better decisions.
Fashion does not need more ambitious sustainability language. It needs businesses willing to examine their practices, measure what they can demonstrate, and change what is not working. As transparency requirements become more demanding, brands should act now to connect what they say with what they actually do. The real test of sustainability will not be how convincingly a company describes its intentions, but how clearly it can show the progress behind them.
Kerensa Salzmann, founder and CEO of Full Circle Creative Ltd, has 35 years of experience across the fashion and sports industries. Her work focuses on bringing strategy, brand development, and product design into closer alignment, including the practical application of Minimal Waste Design and more considered approaches to materials and production.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.