The ESPR brings commercial opportunity for the circular economy.

From 19 July 2026, large companies operating in the EU can no longer routinely destroy unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation.

The era of brands burning the evidence is over. Kind of.

The ESPR is one of the most meaningful shifts in fashion waste legislation we have seen in years. It turns an industry habit that has often sat behind closed doors into something regulated, documented and harder to hide.

So what happens to the stock now?

Because the regulation intervenes at the end of the mistake - it does not yet solve the system that created it.

Fashion can no longer quietly destroy its mistakesThe destruction of unsold fashion products is one of the industry’s most absurd open secrets.

Clothes designed, sampled, produced, shipped, stored, merchandised, photographed and sold into the world, only to be destroyed before ever being worn.

According to the European Environment Agency, an estimated 4 - 9% of all textile products placed on the European market are destroyed before use. That is between 264,000 and 594,000 tonnes of textiles each year.

The environmental damage is not only in the act of destruction. It is in everything that happened before it - fibre production, spinning, weaving, dyeing, finishing, transport, warehousing, photography, retail, returns, repackaging and markdown.

A product does not become waste at the point of disposal. It starts becoming waste the moment it is produced without a real enough plan for use.

The ESPR tells the industry that unsold stock is no longer an invisible commercial inconvenience. It is a (low key debatably) regulated environmental problem. That being said, no EU inspector is standing at every warehouse door counting garments.

The regulation does not say “produce less”

This pioneering legislation also reveals the limit of regulation as a fix for fashion’s excess. This is probably the most important limitation.

The ESPR does not directly regulate how much a company produces. It does not decide whether a buying team over-ordered. It does not correct an aggressive growth target. It does not stop a brand building a business model around speed, novelty, over-assortment and permanent markdown.

It arrives after the products remain unsold. It’s a big flaw in the legislation.

A ban on destruction can change what companies do with surplus, but it does not automatically stop surplus being created in the first place.

Brands still have a range of commercial routes available before destruction is even considered. They can discount, use outlet channels, move inventory into secondary markets, explore resale, remanufacturing, donation, repair or alternative sales models. None of those are inherently bad. In many cases, they are better than destruction.

But they can also allow the original business model to continue.

Overproduce first. Find a channel later.

That is where the regulation becomes less of a solution and more of a pressure point.

It makes surplus harder to neglect, but the real shift has to happen earlier: in forecasting, buying, design, merchandising, production planning, inventory control and the commercial incentives that still reward volume.

Damage is not always obvious - and it’s subjective

The ESPR does allow destruction under specific derogations. Some make obvious sense: products that are dangerous, contaminated, legally non-compliant or counterfeit should not simply be pushed back into circulation.

But other areas are more complicated.

Products may be destroyed where they are damaged, deteriorated or contaminated, and where repair or refurbishment is not technically feasible or cost-effective. On paper, that sounds reasonable. In practice, it raises the question that sits underneath almost every circular fashion conversation: who decides what is worth saving?

Is a broken zip repairable?

What happens to stock affected by mould after poor storage?

How damaged is too damaged?

What counts as cost-effective when labour is expensive and replacement is cheap?

The regulation defines cost-effectiveness through the cost of repair or refurbishment compared with the wider cost of destroying and replacing that product. That is useful, but it still leaves room for commercial judgement.

And commercial judgement has rarely been neutral in fashion.

For low-value fast fashion, repair can very quickly look irrational on a spreadsheet. For luxury, brand control and intellectual property can complicate reuse. For licensed product, contracts may restrict what can happen after a certain date. For products with logos, labels or design features that cannot be removed, remanufacturing may become technically difficult.

This is an interesting element of the ESPR - it asks brands to evidence why destruction was the only justifiable route.

That turns repairability, product quality, storage, sorting and internal decision-making into compliance questions. It also segues commercial opportunities.

Donation is not infinite

The ESPR pushes businesses to explore donation before destruction in certain cases. Companies may need to offer products directly to suitable social economy organisations in the EU, or publicly offer them for donation for a set period, before destruction can be justified under that route.

This sounds obvious until you think about the receiving end.

Charities and social enterprises do not have unlimited warehouse space, staff, sorting capacity, volunteers, logistics infrastructure or demand.

Donation can be a useful route. It can also become a dumping strategy with ‘conscious’ optics. Realistically, unwanted stock does not become wanted simply because it is free.

If products are low quality, badly sized, seasonally irrelevant, logistically difficult, over-branded, damaged, culturally unsuitable or arriving in volumes that overwhelm the recipient, donation can push the problem downstream.

That means donation needs design.

There is an opportunity here for brands to build more intentional social routes for surplus: product ranges designed for redistribution, partnerships with organisations that actually need specific stock, repair-before-donation models, local allocation systems, school and community uniform programmes, emergency clothing networks, and commercial-social hybrids that make redistribution dignified rather than desperate.

Surplus can still move

One of the most uncomfortable questions is what happens when surplus leaves Europe. Because it absolutely can.

The ESPR prevents the routine destruction of unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear under EU rules. But the broader system of global textile flows does not stop at the border.

The European Environment Agency has already noted that a large share of unsold products is ultimately exported out of Europe, with many going to Africa and Asia for reuse or recycling. In some cases, evidence suggests that a significant portion can still end up as waste, in open landfills or open-air incineration.

It is not enough to ask whether products were destroyed inside Europe. We need to question is who remains accountable for them once they are moved elsewhere.

This is where fashion’s surplus problem connects to waste colonialism.

If regulation makes destruction harder within the EU but surplus is simply redirected into less visible systems, the industry has not solved waste. It has exported the burden of dealing with it.

The risk is that Europe looks cleaner while other regions inherit the physical mess, and environmental damage.

Repair needs an economy

The ESPR encourages keeping products in circulation through routes like repair, refurbishment, resale and remanufacturing wherever possible.

That direction is important. But it also exposes one of the biggest gaps in fashion’s circular transition: repair and upcycling only work when they are commercially viable.

Many garments are not designed to be repaired or remade. Complex fibre blends, glued construction, low material quality, awkward trims, coatings, weak seams and low product values can make repair more expensive than producing something new.

A garment designed only for first sale is often a nightmare at end of life.

The ESPR should make brands think harder about that. If destruction is no longer the easy exit, design for durability, repairability, disassembly and resale becomes commercially more relevant. So does better sorting, product data, repair labour, reverse logistics, refurbishment skills and partnerships with businesses that know how to keep products moving.

This warrants a repair economy.

A system where repair is accessible, skilled, desirable, costed properly and integrated into the brand’s commercial model rather than treated as an afterthought.

Here, regulation by default starts to create markets.

The ESPR brings boundless opportunities

The smartest brands will treat the ESPR as an operating model signal.

If destruction is harder, surplus becomes more expensive. If surplus becomes more expensive, better forecasting matters. If better forecasting matters, buying calendars, data, demand planning, preorder models, made-to-order production, modular design, resale partnerships, outlet strategy, repair services and product lifecycle planning all become more commercially relevant.

For circular fashion platforms, repair businesses, resale services, rental models, textile recyclers, remanufacturers, biomaterial innovators and redistribution networks, this creates a moment of real commercial relevance.

The ESPR is not by any means perfect - it’s not solving overproduction, it leaves difficult questions around damage, cost-effectiveness, donation capacity, export flows and enforcement consistency. It will create paperwork. It may create loophole behaviour. It will not magically turn a linear industry into a circular one.

The industry now needs systems that can deal with what legislation has made visible.