There is a regulation coming that the fashion industry has been aware of for years and has, in many cases, been hoping would be delayed, watered down, or quietly forgotten.
It has not been forgotten.
The EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, known as ESPR, is now in force and its requirements for textile and apparel products are being phased in over the next several years. What it demands of clothing brands is something that most of them currently cannot provide: evidence.
What the Regulation Actually Requires
The ESPR introduces a Digital Product Passport for most categories of physical goods sold in the EU. For clothing, this means a unique identifier, attached to or embedded in the product, that links to verified data about the materials it contains, where and how it was made, its environmental impact relative to defined benchmarks, and how it should be handled at the end of its life.
The key word is verified. Not claimed. Not stated in marketing copy. Verified through a supply chain that has been audited and documented to a standard that regulators can assess.
For a brand that sources materials from certified suppliers, manufactures in facilities with audited standards, and uses fibres whose environmental credentials are independently certified, this is a documentation exercise. For a brand that has been making environmental claims without the supply chain to back them up, it is something considerably more challenging.
The regulation does not distinguish between brands that believe their claims and brands that know they are overstating them. It requires evidence from both.
What Greenwashing Actually Looks Like
The Competition and Markets Authority in the UK published its Green Claims Code in 2021 and has since taken enforcement action against several fashion brands for misleading environmental claims. The pattern is consistent: broad claims about sustainability, recycled content, or carbon neutrality that are either unverifiable, based on a small proportion of the range, or contradicted by the actual composition of the products being sold.
The ESPR goes further than the Green Claims Code in one important respect. It does not just prohibit false claims. It requires positive disclosure. A brand cannot simply avoid saying things that are untrue. It must provide accurate, verified information about what its products actually are.
This is a higher bar, and it is deliberately so. The logic behind it is straightforward: a consumer reading a label or scanning a product passport should be able to make an informed decision based on accurate information, not navigate a landscape of competing claims and decide who to believe.
Who This Affects
The brands most affected by the ESPR are the ones that have built their identity around sustainability claims without building the supply chain infrastructure to support those claims. These are not exclusively fast fashion brands. Some are positioned at the premium end of the market and charge prices that imply a level of transparency they cannot currently deliver.
Brands with genuinely transparent supply chains, certified materials, and documented manufacturing processes are in a different position. The regulation requires them to do what they were already doing, just more formally and more visibly.
The distinction matters because the regulation is, in effect, a mechanism for making that distinction legible. Currently, a consumer cannot easily tell the difference between a brand that is genuinely doing what it claims and one that is claiming without doing. The Digital Product Passport is designed to make that difference visible, at the point of purchase, without requiring the consumer to do their own research.
What It Means in Practice
For consumers, the ESPR means that a scan of a product passport will eventually provide accurate information about what a garment contains, where it was made, and what its verified environmental footprint is. Not a marketing claim. A documented fact.
For brands, it means that the period in which it was possible to benefit commercially from sustainability claims without the evidence to support them is coming to an end. Not immediately, and not without a difficult transition period for many. But the direction is clear.
For the industry broadly, it represents a shift from a model in which environmental performance was self-reported and essentially unverifiable to one in which it is documented, disclosed, and subject to regulatory scrutiny.
That is a significant change. It will not happen without resistance, and the timeline will almost certainly slip in some categories. But the regulation exists, it is being implemented, and the brands that have been preparing for it are in a better position than those that have been hoping it would go away.
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