November, HCIA

The EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, is the basic document for the European Environmental Poli-cy regarding the textiles ecosystem, which also includes leather and footwear. It is detailing the provisions of European Green Deal, the Circular Economy Action Plan and the European industrial strategy in relation with the textiles, clothing, leather and footwear sector. The strategy has three main aims: a European Textiles eco-system that will be

• resilient,
• greener and
• competitive

These three distinct targets must be met and therefore create a new environment for the sector. This can be deployed in several aspects, since from now on textile ecosystem products should be:

• Durable and repairable. This is related or is in fact contrary to the market segment of the so called fast fashion, which is considered in fact, as not been really beneficial for the customer. Higher quality but on the other hand affordable products, should be preferred and promoted. This calls for a major change in the market strategy of the clothing business, which is based on low cost and constant change of trends in fashion every year: The major brands present their new collections, continuing a long tradition in the clothing sector.
• Recyclable, or made to the maximum possible extent from recycled materials.
• Manufactured with respect to the social and environmental responsibility.

The major regulations that relate to the textiles productions, are

The Water Framework Directive,

The WFD Directive 2000/60/EC is a major regulation, aiming to preserve and protect water resources in EU, or in other words to have adequate quantities of good quality water. The member states have to define the river basins and for each basin they have to set management plans and monitoring programs. The requirements of these river basins management programs, are transferred to the entities that are located in the basin, including of course the business entities (eg production sites) and they are subject to strict limits for their liquid effluents and to the relevant inspections from the authorities.

• REACH

Regulation EC 1907/2006 and amendments?, aims at addressing the risk to the environment and humans from chemical substances and mixtures. It is a very demanding regulation, according to which every producer or importer of chemicals in EU, has to submit a file with a risk assessment of every specific substance, including the relevant scientific data that support this risk assessment. Textiles are not themselves chemical products, but raw and auxiliary materials of the textile ecosystem are (finishing agents, dyes) and this affects the business, since the use of not registered products is not allowed in EU.

• IPPC

The Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive (2008/1/EC), originally published in 1996 by the European Commission and amended later, requires inspection authorities to issue permits to industrial in-stallations and monitor their environmental performance. It adopts the 'integrated' approach that takes into account all of the major environmental impacts of industrial installations (water, air and ground) based on the concept of 'pollution prevention' rather than the concept of remediation. Conformity to the directive should be done through employment of Best Available Techniques (BAT), setting operating conditions and emission limit values in installations permits. BATs are described in the BREF documents, that are extended and highly tech-nical detailed documents (the BREF for the Textile Industry is more than 1000 pages, the one for the Tanning of Leather was reviewed in 2013).

• Waste Framework Directive

An amendment of the Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC is expected soon, focusing on textiles waste. Member States will be required to set up separate collection of textiles by 1 January 2025, as well as to comply to the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) principle. EPR schemes require producers to take responsibility for the entire lifecycle of their products, in particular at the end of the product’s life. The concept of eco-modulation is central in the amendment approach, meaning the performance of the product concerning circu-larity and environmental. The textile companies will have to create or take part in waste management schemes, that will operate on the basis of separate collection- sorting- re-use and recycling. New investments are needed new technologies will be developed (sorting, re-using, traceability) and new skills for employees have to be deployed. Smart and soft tagging, as well as blockchain, are some of the technologies that are expected to be adopted by the industry. Illegal waste shipments to non-EU countries, is also expected to be addressed by this amendment.

We should have in mind that TCLF is a vast sector with a product that is among the main consumer needs, apart from other applications. The major clothing brands are mainly European, the big market for the products is the so called developed countries (with includes Europe), but the production of the raw materials and the product themselves is often done outside Europe, mainly in Asia and other low labor cost areas. In this manner, the European regulations have to be applied to products that are manufactured outside Europe. Textile enterprises and brands have long taken the advantage of low cost production, but now have to adjust to strict and de-manding regulations and directives, that are applicable to their products. Supervision, guidance and collabora-tion with their contractors in Asia is a major challenge for them, as well.

Conclusion
Regulations in the European Union are quite many and strict. EU has been committed to the forefront of the global affords for saving the planet and is issuing many and demanding laws. This fact, is changing the scenery of the sector, creates new opportunities, somehow diversified form the existing ones, but can also be a threat to those who cannot comply and follow these new requirements.

November, HCIA