It is 8:24 AM. A delivery worker who started working four hours ago stops a van next to our doorstep, pushes something in our mailbox, and drives off to their next package receiver two minutes away. The ugly t-shirt we thoughtlessly ordered online two days ago has already arrived. It does not even fit and it does not look like what we expected it to be, so we send it back for free. Moments later, our bank account has been credited again. No harm, no foul.

That ugly t-shirt cost 2.700 litres of water to produce and contributed to the 20% of global clean water pollution from dyeing and finishing products. Furthermore, it had to be shipped after production, only to be shipped back until its final destination, which is incineration or a landfill somewhere in a third world country far from our beds.

The fashion industry has become so accessible and globalised it is leaving its marks on the planet. But what if fashion were good for the planet?

As is the case within various other industries, the urge for sustainability is growing. Not only would a more sustainable circular textile economy benefit the environment, it would also have an immediate impact on people’s lives, more specifically for workers in the associated industries.

The big question that lies at the forefront of this topic is the following: how can the environment and society benefit from a more sustainable circular textile economy, starting with the low-cost workers outside of the EU, going on with workers involved with transport, up until the consumer, with the environment as a central parameter?

Textile manufacturing is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then from yarn into fabric. These fabrics are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth, which is then converted into useful goods such as but not limited to clothing.

Transport is the movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. In other words, the action of transport is defined as a particular movement of an organism or thing from one point to another.

Consumption is the act of using resources to satisfy current needs and wants. It can be either seen as the final purchase of newly produced goods and services by individuals for immediate use, or as the aggregate of all economic activity that does not entail the design, production, and marketing of goods and services.

Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects.

Fast fashion is a term used to describe the clothing industry's output of replicating recent catwalk or social trends and high-fashion designs, mass-producing them at low cost, and bringing them to retail stores quickly while demand is highest. The term fast fashion is used generically to describe the products of the fast fashion business model.

With low profit margins, a high cost of compliance with environmental and chemical legislation, and a fierce international competition, mainly due to factors such as lower environmental and social standards in third countries, manufacturing costs are significantly lower outside of the EU, resulting in the EU being highly dependent on imported goods from outside of the EU.

As is the case for many other industries, the COVID-19 pandemic also left its mark on the apparel industry. With supply chains on the brink of collapse across the global market systems, every loser has a winner at the opposite side. While EU-27 apparel exports visibly decreased in 2020, imports from Chinese markets rose by a booming 46.9%.

Not only has the COVID-19 pandemic left its mark on the production side of the apparel industry, demand also suffered a significant drop of 13.3%. As the market needs time to recover from this unexpected but vast hit, which is expected to be no earlier than 2023, would now be the right time to further hit the sector and conduct policy that once again turns everything upside down?

In February 2021, Parliament demanded EU targets to reduce over-consumption for the first time ever. From an economic standpoint, as many sectors first took a hit due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the supply chain and a general scare for consumption, what long term effects can, on top of the current struggles, reducing consumption have on the apparel industry?

Furthermore, the brick and mortar business model took a severe hit, driving customers even further away from physical to online presence in the market. As commonly agreed upon, the current economic crisis is different from other crises in the past, such as the 2008 financial crisis, as supply and demand both took immediate hits worldwide. How can the EU prepare to tackle this change with long-term effects in a sustainable manner? The ongoing rise of e-commerce removed another barrier for consumers to get new apparel into their closets. Where in the past people had to go out to physically try on and rather thoughtfully buy clothing, this practice can now be conducted without leaving your home.

The European market holds a high potential for recycled fashion, as per the Centre for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries (CBI). Whilst the CBI highlights this potential, the public does not seem to care enough about this lost opportunity with immense value, as of the 5.8 million tonnes of textiles that EU consumers discard every year, only a quarter is recycled, with the remaining 4.3 million tonnes being dumped. What can the EU do to ensure these innovative sustainable initiatives become business as usual?

As has been made clear by now, transitioning into a sustainable circular economy does bring many positive aspects to the table when it comes to the environment, but can often conflict and clash with the economical side of the story, especially in the short term. The EU should be there to bring balance to the force and unite the private sphere with the greater public good and a healthy environment.

Per the Parliament’s news page, an article on the impact of textile production and waste on the environment, updated in March 2021, provides us with the following information:

In March 2020, the European Commission adopted a new circular economy action plan, which includes an EU strategy for textiles, aimed at stimulating innovation and boosting reuse within the sector.

In February 2021, the Parliament adopted a resolution on the new circular economy action plan demanding additional measures to achieve a carbon-neutral, environmentally sustainable, toxic-free and fully circular economy by 2050, including tighter recycling rules and binding targets for materials use and consumption by 2030.

However, as is the case with many decisions made on environmental targets, targets lead to new targets, only to be renewed by other targets at a later stage. How can the EU ensure these targets are realised and implemented in a fast-moving, economically driven environment?

As Jan Huitema (Renew Europe, the Netherlands), the Lead MEP on the circular economy action plan states that “Circularity principles need to be implemented throughout all stages of a value chain to make the circular economy a success. From design to production, all the way to the consumer.”, it appears the EU has to increase their policy impact outside of its bubble. Since many of the stages in the root-to-fruit scheme of the global apparel industry take place outside of the EUs legislative framework, Huitema’s statement touches the main nerve of what is currently not going how it should.

In this amendment to the Directive on waste, a quick browse for the word “export” brings us to (50) and Article 11a.8. The Directive states that Member States are, when exporting waste, responsible to ascertain whether a shipment is destined for recovery operations in line with European standards or not. A quick reality check clearly shows that this responsibility is, like many others, neglected. The common thread seems to be the issue with making policy reality.

The EU is already playing a strong game when it comes to bringing green to public procurement processes for textiles, such as tenders, with their EU GPP Criteria. However, it is safe to state that the textile industry is a private rather than a public sector industry. When can consumers start benefiting from the same standards the EU is already imposing on their public tender offers?

One of the projects in place is the European light industries innovation and technology (ELIIT) project. It seeks to support textile, clothing, leather and footwear (TCLF) SMEs in enhancing their competitiveness while helping them integrate new technologies in innovative or high added-value products, processes, or services. However, since the project kick-off in November 2019, the project has only supported 25 SMEs, the equivalent of a needle in a haystack when compared to the fashion industry.

At the moment, the European Commission works to address issues such as the growing number of counterfeit goods, the protection of intellectual property rights, and the financing difficulties small businesses are facing. As the Commission seems to defend the top-tier first world management aspects of the industry, it appears to stay silent about the production activities going on outside the bubble.

With the European Green Deal being the go-to strategy when it comes to sustainable policy and the approach to what is yet to come, the EU has broken down what has been perceived by the public as a vague unsupported statement into rather concrete action plans. As the EU aims to be climate-neutral by 2050, its policy approach is hoped to change the minds of the “yeah, right” thinkers of today. In order to do so, more than a top-tier strategy is needed, so that policy is sustainably implemented into the core of our global society.

As caring Europeans watch further developments with open eyes, the Paris Agreement debacle is still fresh on people’s scoreboards. EU 0 - Global warming +2. With the EU however sailing in the right direction, Member States and NGOs, such as EuRIC, are still calling for a more urgent break with fast fashion in upcoming EU textile laws, suggesting that the EU is not doing enough.

From https://www.euractiv.com/section/circular-economy/news/eleven-european-countries-call-for-ambitious-measures-to-tackle-waste-in-textiles/

“In the joint paper, the 11 countries call on the European Commission to explore which materials could have textile-to-textile recycled content requirements, which would boost recycling rates.

The Commission is considering similar targets but is yet to confirm whether these would be included in the upcoming strategy.

The 11 countries also propose that more research should be undertaken into how to encourage the longer use of clothes and say that measures should be considered to prevent the destruction of unsold garments, which some shops end up doing.

Greenwashing also needs to be prevented, according to the signatories, who are calling for a mandatory label that shows buyers what they are buying and how it was made.”

A parliamentary question from Aurélia Beigneux, a French MEP from the Identity and Democracy Group, where a question was raised about the idea for environmental labelling on clothing labels, was answered by Mr Sinkevičius on behalf of the European Commission. In his answer, a roadmap for the EU strategy for sustainable textiles was shared. We are currently awaiting the Commission’s adoption, which is planned for the first quarter of 2022 (right around now), but it can already be anticipated that an EU Ecolabel for Textiles products is in the pipeline.

The above could bring, among others, a potential tangible solution to the table. The Commission is working hard, or hardly working according to the various calls from Member States and NGOs, to work out ideas and suggestions that have been brought to the table throughout the years. In any case, it appears they are taking their time whilst landfills are still piling up.

Many of the questions in this topic overview need an answer, and it is now up to you to identify and analyse those problems in order to come up with impactful solutions!