EU Green Rules Force the Textile Industry to Shift Its Focus to Design and Data

The export-oriented textile industry is facing an important change in the way it approaches the market: environmental requirements are no longer focused solely on production. Product durability, repairability, fiber composition, the use of recycled materials, supply chain information, and post-consumer treatment plans are increasingly becoming part of the product dossier.

The European Union (EU) is developing a policy framework that incorporates these criteria into the design and circulation of goods. For the textile industry, the impact will not be limited to wastewater treatment, energy consumption, or chemical use. Businesses will also need to build the capacity to demonstrate how products are made, what materials they use, and how they can continue to be used after leaving the store.

This change is particularly significant for manufacturers in Vietnam, where many businesses participate in global supply chains through contract manufacturing or made-to-order production. When international brands must comply with new legal requirements, those standards are often passed down to suppliers through contracts, purchasing criteria, and factory assessment systems.

From Environmental Standards to Requirements Covering the Entire Product Life Cycle

On June 13, 2024, the EU issued Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 establishing a framework for setting ecodesign requirements for sustainable products. The regulation expands the ecodesign approach beyond energy-related products while creating a basis for the EU to establish specific requirements for individual groups of goods. The regulation was published on the EU’s EUR-Lex system.

In principle, ecodesign is not only about reducing electricity consumption during use. For a product, regulators may consider many other factors, such as durability, reusability, repairability, upgradability, recyclability, the proportion of recycled materials, resource use, the amount of waste generated, and the ability to provide information to consumers.

This changes the position of environmental activities within the textile value chain. Previously, businesses often viewed wastewater treatment, energy saving, or chemical reduction as the main tasks of a green production program. Those tasks remain necessary, but they are not sufficient to meet a management model based on the product life cycle.

Under the new model, decisions about fibers, fabric structure, dyes, accessories, sewing methods, and finishing processes may affect a product’s ability to be reused or recycled many years after it has been sold. A shirt made with multiple blended fibers, numerous difficult-to-remove accessories, or components that are not clearly identified will be more difficult to process when it becomes waste.

The EU Sustainable Textiles Strategy Lays the Foundation for Change

In the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, published by the European Commission in 2022, the EU outlined a direction for textile products placed on the market to be more durable, easier to repair and recycle, and produced with more reasonable resource use. The strategy also addresses the prevention of overproduction and overconsumption, the promotion of circular business models, and improvements to consumer information.

The strategy is a policy direction, not in itself a single technical standard that immediately applies to every product. However, the document shows the EU market’s long-term direction: responsibility for environmental impacts will be distributed more broadly across the value chain, from designers, manufacturers, brands, and retailers to post-consumer treatment providers.

For textile suppliers, this may change the content of discussions with customers. Questions about price, delivery times, and production capacity will be accompanied by questions about the origin of materials, emissions data, the proportion of recycled fibers, chemicals used, and the ability to trace each stage.

Product Data Is Becoming a Competitive Capability

One of the notable changes in the EU policy framework is the growing role of data. Businesses can no longer simply claim that a product is “greener” or “more sustainable” without measurement methods and supporting records that meet the requirements of customers, regulators, or assessment organizations.

In actual production, data needs to be generated by multiple departments. The purchasing department must know where materials come from and what documentation they have. The technical department needs to record fiber composition, fabric weight, fabric structure, and accessories. Factories must manage information on water, energy, chemicals, waste, and processing stages. The quality department needs to link this data to order numbers, material batches, and finished products.

If data is collected separately in spreadsheets or created only when a customer requests it, compliance costs will be higher and the risk of discrepancies will be greater. Conversely, when data is linked to the production management system from the outset, businesses can use the same platform for quality control, traceability, environmental reporting, and customer assessments.

This is also why the concept of the digital product passport is frequently mentioned in the EU’s sustainable product policies. A digital product passport is not simply a QR code on a label. In principle, it is a mechanism that links a product to a set of information about its characteristics, materials, origin, repairability, recyclability, or other sustainability data. The specific format will depend on the requirements issued for each product group and implementation stage.

For textile businesses, preparation does not necessarily have to begin with a complex technology system. The first step could be to agree on a minimum data inventory, identify who is responsible for updates, establish rules for storing documentation, and check consistency among purchasing, production, and export data.

Issues Exporting Businesses Need to Review

Fiber Composition and Accessories

Fiber composition is basic information, but it has a major impact on the ability to classify and process products after use. Businesses need to accurately control the proportions of different fibers, how they are presented in technical documents, and consistency between material records and product labels.

For products made with blended fibers, businesses should assess early how that structure affects recycling goals and the specific requirements of each customer. Blended fibers can provide benefits in terms of performance or cost, but they also complicate sorting and recycling. This is not a reason to eliminate all blended fibers; rather, it requires design decisions to take the entire product life cycle into account.

Accessories also need to be included in the assessment process. Buttons, zippers, labels, sewing thread, coatings, decorative materials, and packaging can affect disassembly, sorting, or recycling. Creating a materials inventory for each product line helps businesses respond more quickly when customers request detailed information.

Durability and Repairability

The durability of clothing cannot be assessed solely by appearance or sensory judgment. Depending on the type of product, businesses may need to consider colorfastness, shrinkage, seam strength, resistance to washing, or dimensional stability. Testing methods and acceptance thresholds may vary depending on the product and customer requirements.

An important point is that durability needs to be linked to design and use instructions. A product made from high-quality materials can still have its service life shortened quickly if care instructions are unsuitable. Therefore, information on labels, washing instructions, and the ability to provide components or repair services may become part of the product strategy.

Chemicals, Water, and Energy

Chemical requirements in textile dyeing and finishing have already been an important part of many brands’ supplier assessment systems. New policy trends make this management more closely connected to product records and the ability to demonstrate compliance.

Factories need to maintain a list of permitted chemicals, safety records, test results, and change-control procedures. If a business switches to a new chemical or supplier, it should assess technical effectiveness, impacts on wastewater, testing requirements, and the ability to provide documentation.

For water and energy, reducing consumption remains a practical goal because it can simultaneously lower operating costs and environmental risks. However, figures are only valuable when the measurement scope is clearly defined. Businesses need to distinguish between data for the entire factory, an individual production line, a specific process, or a unit of product, while also recording the measurement method and collection period.

Impact on Vietnamese Businesses in the Supply Chain

The impact of green requirements will not be the same for all businesses. Suppliers that work directly with international brands may receive data and audit requirements earlier. Businesses producing basic goods or supplying through intermediaries may not immediately face all the requirements, but they will still be indirectly affected as customers further up the chain standardize purchasing criteria.

Conversion costs are a clear challenge. Businesses may need to invest in measuring equipment, laboratories, traceability software, employee training, production-line improvements, and third-party verification. For companies with limited profit margins, this investment may create short-term pressure.

However, delaying action also carries risks. If data has not been prepared, a business may lose time completing documentation when a customer requests it, have limited ability to participate in new product programs, or become dependent on third-party assessments. In some cases, a lack of data does not mean that a product fails to meet requirements, but it makes it difficult for the business to prove that the product meets them.

Businesses with effective management systems can turn compliance requirements into a commercial advantage. They can provide information more quickly, identify causes when problems arise, compare performance across orders, and cooperate with customers to develop new materials. This capability is especially valuable when brands want to reduce supply chain risks or report progress toward environmental goals.

Do Not Simply Chase Certifications

Environmental certifications and labels can support the demonstration of certain characteristics of materials or processes, but they do not replace a complete data management system. Each certification has its own scope, criteria, validity period, and assessment method. Businesses need to determine which certifications suit their products, customers, and target markets instead of accumulating multiple certificates that cannot be connected to production data.

The European Commission has also emphasized in sustainable product initiatives that environmental information needs to be substantiated and avoid being misleading. Therefore, claims such as “environmentally friendly,” “green,” or “sustainable” should be replaced with more specific information: what materials the product uses, in what proportion, what method was used to verify the data, and how far the claim extends.

Preparing for the Policy Implementation Phase

The EU framework regulation does not mean that every technical requirement for textile products has already been applied simultaneously to all products. Detailed requirements still need to be specified by product group, implementing legislation, and market conditions. Businesses therefore need to distinguish between policy direction, legal obligations that are already in force, and specific requirements in customer contracts.

A suitable approach is to develop a roadmap based on priorities. First, businesses should map the supply chain for their main export products, identify key materials and suppliers, and then assess data gaps. Next, they should select several product lines to pilot traceability from materials to finished products, rather than implementing the system across the board from the outset.

At the same time, the design, purchasing, production, quality, and sales departments need to participate together. If responsibility is assigned only to the environmental department, the business will find it difficult to influence decisions about materials and product structure. If responsibility is assigned only to the information technology department, the system may store a large amount of data without ensuring that the data is properly generated on the factory floor.

Businesses also need to discuss data formats, audit scope, calculation methods, and verification requirements with customers at an early stage. The same information about the proportion of recycled materials or emissions may be requested differently by different brands. Reaching agreement from the beginning helps reduce repeated data entry and limit disputes when goods are delivered.

For Vietnam, this process also involves the capabilities of second- and third-tier suppliers. A garment factory may build a strong system but still face difficulties if it does not receive reliable information from suppliers of fabric, yarn, dyes, or accessories. Therefore, an effective green transition needs to be carried out across the chain, accompanied by training and the sharing of requirements with small and medium-sized businesses.

The EU is shifting from an approach that controls products only when they are placed on the market to one that intervenes at the stages of design, data management, and the product life cycle. For the textile industry, this is pressure but also a signal for businesses to upgrade their management capabilities. Companies that prepare early will not only meet regulations but also gain a foundation for deeper participation in orders requiring transparency, new materials, and circular production models.