Fashion's Carbon Footprint Draws New Regulation in the United States and Europe
Climate-related regulation affecting fashion and textiles is moving beyond corporate-level climate disclosure toward the business practices that contribute to the sector's emissions footprint. In the United States, California is implementing a textile producer responsibility program tied expressly to reducing "climate pollution," while New York legislators are considering direct greenhouse gas ("GHG") inventory and reduction requirements for fashion sellers. In Europe, new rules restrict destruction of unsold clothing, and France has adopted a law targeting the "ultra-express" fashion business model.
California and New York Pursue Different U.S. Approaches
California is implementing its Responsible Textile Recovery Act through an extended producer responsibility program requiring the apparel and textile industry to ensure covered products are collected, repaired, reused, and recycled. CalRecycle expressly describes the program as part of an effort to reduce textile waste and "climate pollution." CalRecycle approved Landbell USA as the producer responsibility organization on February 27, 2026, and required covered producers to join by July 1, 2026. The American Apparel & Footwear Association ("AAFA") challenged CalRecycle's selection of Landbell USA, but the Superior Court of California, County of Sacramento, tentatively denied AAFA's request for a preliminary injunction, leaving the July 1 registration requirement in effect. CalRecycle has also begun developing implementing regulations, holding a first regulatory-concepts workshop on August 13, 2026, with a second scheduled for September 29, 2026.
New York legislators, by contrast, are considering legislation containing direct fashion-sector GHG requirements. Senate Bill 9740 would generally apply to a "fashion seller" whose sales of apparel, footwear, or fashion bags exceed $100 million in annual gross receipts, subject to specific provisions for multibrand retailers and online platforms. The bill would require annual GHG inventories and near- and long-term reduction targets covering Scope 1, Scope 2, and Scope 3 emissions. As of the date of this publication, S.9740 and its Assembly companion, A.4631B, remained in their respective committees, and neither had received floor action when the scheduled regular session concluded in June.
EU Rules Target Emissions Embedded in Unsold Clothing
At the EU level, a prohibition on destruction of certain unsold consumer products took effect on July 19, 2026. Article 25 of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation ("ESPR") generally prohibits large companies from destroying covered unsold apparel, clothing accessories, and footwear. The prohibition applies to medium-sized enterprises beginning July 19, 2030, while micro and small enterprises are generally excluded.
The European Commission expressly connects the prohibition to GHG emissions, explaining that destruction of new, usable products wastes the materials and energy invested in production and creates avoidable emissions at disposal. The Commission estimates that 4%–9% of unsold textiles in Europe are destroyed before being worn and that the practice generates approximately 5.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually. The implementing framework instead directs companies toward alternatives such as resale, donation, repair, refurbishment, and remanufacturing, while allowing destruction subject to specified exceptions, including for intellectual-property violations.
The unsold-goods prohibition is also an early element of a broader product-level framework. The Commission's 2025–2030 ESPR working plan ranks textiles and apparel as a first-priority product group, identifies significant potential to extend product lifetimes and reduce climate-change and energy-consumption impacts, and identifies 2027 as the indicative timeline for adoption of textile and apparel ecodesign measures.
France Targets the Ultra-Express Fashion Business Model
France has gone further by adopting legislation directed specifically at high-volume, short-life fashion. On July 8, 2026, France enacted Law No. 2026-602, visant à réduire l'impact environnemental de l'industrie textile, creating a statutory framework for "ultra-express fashion" (mode ultra-express). The law defines the practice by reference to industrial and commercial practices that reduce a textile product's period of use or useful life through both a high number of new product references and weak incentives to repair. The numerical thresholds and repair criteria remain to be established by an implementing decree, with the practice assessed by brand and by sales channel.
Advertising for covered ultra-express-fashion products and direct or indirect promotion of brands using that practice will be prohibited beginning January 1, 2027. The French Senate's explanation of the legislation expressly links increasing clothing volumes to GHG emissions and states that returning production to sustainable levels is necessary to meet climate commitments.
The law also changes France's general textile extended producer responsibility regime by allowing producer contributions to be modulated according to the breadth or frequency of product offerings and incentives to repair. Where the modulation takes the form of a penalty, the statute establishes ranges of €0.25 to €12 per product in 2026, increasing to €2 to €20 beginning in 2030, and requires eco-organizations, on a producer's reasoned request, to limit the applicable premium or penalty to 50% of the product's pre-tax sale price. The relevant modulation provisions take effect September 1, 2026.
The statute also connects the fashion sector directly to broader carbon policy. Article 10 requires the French government, within six months after promulgation, to report to Parliament on the potential extension of the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism to textile products manufactured outside the European Union.
Regulators Converge on Product-Level Climate Compliance
Taken together, these measures address climate change through different levers: producer responsibility and circularity in California, direct emissions inventories and reduction targets in New York, unsold-inventory and ecodesign rules in the EU, and regulation of the ultra-express-fashion business model in France. For fashion companies operating across these jurisdictions, climate compliance now extends to product volumes, inventory practices, repair and recovery systems, and supply-chain emissions—not just consolidated corporate climate reporting.
