Josephine CARTER
Author
Emissions from clothing and footwear currently exceed the level consistent with the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement by more than twofold. These emissions are expected to increase as annual production continues to expand, with the sector projected to account for 26% of global emissions by 2050. The rapid pace of overproduction, combined with an entrenched 'purchase-discard' consumption model, has led to a surplus of unwanted and unsellable clothing. Much of this waste ultimately ends up in landfills or incinerators in the Global South, shifting the burden of overproduction onto countries least responsible for it.
Efforts to address this challenge are emerging. In 2022, the European Commission introduced the EU Sustainable and Circular Textiles Strategy, which mandates the implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes for textiles and footwear across all Member States by 2028. Under these schemes, producers are charged a fee for every item they introduce to the market. The revenue is then used to fund the collection, sorting and recycling of those products. This policy reflects an effort to transition from a linear take-make-dispose model to a circular economy (CE), which seeks to eliminate waste by keeping resources in use for as long as possible.
France is currently the only country to have implemented a textile EPR policy. Since its inception in 2009, however, the overall volume of new clothing placed on the market has increased. Similarly, EPR schemes in the electronics sector have not led to absolute reductions in material use. While these schemes have proven effective in stimulating waste collection, they have had limited influence on upstream factors such as product design, durability, and the prevention of new items being produced.
In its current form, EPR remains embedded within a green growth paradigm, where continued increases in production and consumption are largely taken for granted. As a result, this policy risks functioning primarily as a mechanism for managing textiles at end-of-life rather than preventing their production earlier in the supply chain, rendering it structurally insufficient to address the environmental and social impacts of the sector.
Addressing this limitation requires a more fundamental rethinking of production and consumption patterns. This is where the concept of sufficiency becomes critical. Sufficiency is a systemic governance principle that actively avoids resource demand while delivering well-being for all within safe boundaries of the earth system. It prompts us to consider when too much resource use threatens ecological integrity and social justice.
Within a sufficiency framework, the fees that producers pay under EPR schemes must therefore be adapted in a way that incentivises both better product design and a reduction in total volumes placed on the market. This requires the full internalisation of waste management costs for newly produced items. Fees in the range of US$0.50 to US$2.50 per item would closely reflect the true costs borne across the global reverse supply chain.
However, even a strengthened EPR scheme cannot, on its own, deliver the reductions required. It must be embedded within a broader sufficiency policy framework aimed at avoiding demand for new textiles, slowing production cycles and ensuring justice for all along the supply chain. Such a framework could include defining garment consumption corridors, mandatory disclosure of production volumes and the distribution of EPR funds to enable circular infrastructure in the Global South.