From 1 October, anyone can publish your French environmental score
France's coût environnemental enters its second phase. If a brand has not published its own score, third parties — retailers, NGOs, comparison platforms, journalists — may now calculate and publish one without the brand's approval, using Ecobalyse default parameters that are deliberately conservative: India as country of production, 100,000 references, 100% air freight and ultra-fast-fashion durability settings. A second trigger also activates: if a brand communicates any other environmental figure, such as a carbon footprint on its online shop, displaying the Environmental Cost becomes mandatory.
Any producer, importer or distributor placing clothing on the French market, whatever the country of origin — including non-French brands with a French online shop, and especially those already publishing a carbon figure, who now fall under the mandatory-display trigger.
How it affects
The default parameters are the real penalty. A European maker producing in Portugal or Italy and shipping by sea gets scored as if it produced in India and flew everything in — a worse number than reality, published by someone else, with the brand's name on it. This is one of the rare cases where publishing your own data is plainly cheaper than doing nothing.
REGULATION⏳ applies from 10 October
PFHxA limit hits clothing on 10 October — the import date decides
Under entry 79 of REACH Annex XVII, introduced by Regulation (EU) 2024/2462, consumer clothing, accessories and footwear may not be placed on the EU market from 10 October 2026 with PFHxA and its salts at 25 ppb or above, or PFHxA-related substances at 1,000 ppb or above, measured per homogeneous material. Stock already placed on the market before that date stays legal, and for imported goods the arrival of the shipment — not the production date — is what counts as placing on the market. The same limits extend to other consumer textiles such as curtains and upholstery on 10 October 2027.
Brands with water-repellent outerwear, technical fabrics or coated trims, and anyone with a container landing in the first half of October.
How it affects
Two concrete actions this week. Check arrival dates of shipments in transit: identical goods landing on 9 October are outside the restriction and on 11 October are inside it. And ask suppliers for a written finishing declaration plus an accredited test report on finished fabric, with reporting limits below 25 ppb and outer fabric and coated trims tested separately.
REGULATION
UK settles for "comply or explain" as the EU locks in mandatory ESRS
The Financial Conduct Authority published policy statement PS26/19, finalising sustainability reporting for listed companies on a comply-or-explain basis instead of the mandatory regime it had consulted on. Reporting follows UK SRS S1 and S2, the British versions of the ISSB standards, for accounting periods beginning on or after 1 January 2027, with first reports in 2028. The regulator cited disproportionate burden on smaller companies and limited investor value in disclosures from companies without material climate impacts.
Groups listed in London that also sell or manufacture inside the EU, and European suppliers who answer sustainability questionnaires from both British and EU customers.
How it affects
The two blocs are now diverging on the same calendar. The revised ESRS, published in the EU Official Journal nine days earlier, are mandatory for companies in CSRD scope for those same financial years. A group listed in London and operating in the EU will end up producing one report it can explain its way out of and another it cannot — and the harder one sets the data standard its suppliers will be asked to meet.
SECTOR NEWS
EU circularity rules start reshaping Pakistan's textile base
EU-Pakistan trade reached €12.2 billion in 2025, with over 85% of Pakistani textile exports entering the bloc duty-free under GSP+. Large exporters are already investing in digital traceability ahead of Digital Product Passport requirements and in collection and sorting ahead of the textile EPR schemes Member States must have running by 2028. A commerce ministry official said smaller firms have limited financial, technological and human-resource capacity, and an APTMA trade economist warned that recycling requirements could raise per-unit costs in a sector working on narrow margins.
European brands and importers sourcing denim, home textiles and cotton basics from Pakistan, and the sourcing teams that will have to collect product data from those mills.
How it affects
The compliance gap is moving up the supply chain, and it is uneven: the large mills will be able to answer a product-passport data request and the small ones will not. If your traceability plan assumes suppliers will simply hand over the data when asked, this is the moment to check which tier of supplier you actually buy from — and whether the GSP+ duty advantage is enough to keep them investing.
SECTOR NEWS
Used-clothing exports could need prior consent under a Basel change
At a webinar co-hosted by the Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association and Resource Recycling's Textile Recovery Summit, panellists warned that moving textiles out of Annex 9 of the Basel Convention would subject used-garment shipments to prior informed consent, obliging exporting countries to notify importing countries and adding documentation and tracking. Basel parties decide in April 2027. Domestic markets in the United States and Europe can absorb only 20 to 30% of the clothing they collect. Jessica Franken of SMART said the change could end up reshaping and destabilising textile circularity just as policymakers try to strengthen it.
Collectors and sorters, the EPR schemes European Member States must have running by mid-2028, and brands designing take-back programmes whose exit route is resale abroad.
How it affects
This is not an EU decision, but it lands squarely on the EU's plan. European EPR will sharply increase collected volumes from 2028, while the export route for the 70 to 80% that domestic markets cannot absorb may get slower and more paperwork-heavy at the same time. Anyone designing a take-back programme around exported resale should price in that risk now rather than after April 2027.