EU Cracks Down on Clothing Waste: "We Wished for Even Faster Implementation"

The European Commission has just adopted a ban preventing companies from intentionally overproducing and subsequently destroying unsold clothing and footwear. The ban will apply from July 1, 2026, for larger companies, while medium-sized enterprises have until 2030 to adapt to the new regulations.

These rules will particularly pressure the fast-fashion industry, characterized by rapidly changing collections and continuous overproduction, often sourced from overseas suppliers in third countries.

While we welcome the regulations, we also wonder why the stricter requirements will only apply to medium-sized companies in four years' time.

"On one hand, we welcome the rules - but we also question why the stricter requirements only apply to medium-sized companies in four years. We would have liked to see all companies covered as soon as possible to reduce the massive overproduction generally seen in the clothing industry. We wanted a faster implementation because we do not believe that destroying new clothes and overproduction is an inherent condition of being in this business. It is a conscious choice made in the boardrooms," says Troels Vest Jensen, CCO at FUSION.

Generally, in the clothing industry, a sales rate of over 70-80% is considered a success. In Denmark alone, this means that 677 tons of new, unsold clothing are burned every year and thus never reach the consumers. These are the figures the EU aims to reduce with the new rules. At FUSION, we had a sales rate of 98.9% in 2024 and 101.6% in 2025 - the latter indicating that more clothes were sold than produced. Combined with a daily delivery reliability of 98.6%, it shows that it is possible to handle a high flow of orders while only producing what is necessary.

"We are pleased that the EU is drawing a line in the sand and setting a direction for the clothing industry as a whole. Therefore, we also hope that the new rules will become an ambitious lever to revisit even stricter requirements for increased durability and more transparent sustainability labeling," elaborates Troels Vest Jensen, who hopes the EU will become even stricter in regulating the industry through the new so-called ESPR rules:

"It is crucial that the EU helps ensure that consumers can actually distinguish between what is good and what is bad. Therefore, it is also essential that, for example, recycled polyester from plastic bottles is not permitted; it may easily seem like a good thing for consumers, but many experts call it 'ultimate stupidity' and pure greenwashing on the part of the industry."