(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Welcome to Big Closet, Small Planet, and this special edition for the Scandinavian Textile Initiative for Climate Action Week 2025. I am Mike Schrager. So last year, we of course checked in around one of the most important areas for driving change in the industry, legislation and policy. And as many of you know, we've worked for many years without that kind of active work from policymakers and legislators.
And we've had sort of a, I would argue, a breakthrough over the last couple of years in that this has moved to the top of the policy and legislative agenda, not only in other parts of the world, like the United States, in certain states, but of course, with Europe, some would argue, taking the lead with the textile strategy.
So I wanted to invite a representative from the commission to update us on how they see the development of the legislation and how they think it will specifically impact climate action. And so we are lucky, very lucky, to have Matthias Maligai. Did I get it right? Mike, that was almost perfect. Good afternoon. Happy to be here. I think you're being nice to me.
Matthias, you are the head of unit, as I understand it, for the European Commission's Directorate for the Environment, DG Environment for Sustainable Products. But maybe you can tell us who you are and a little bit about your background and such. That would be helpful. Yeah. Hi. Hi again. So my name is Matthias Maligai. I'm a Slovenian national. I've been working for the European Commission for over 20 years now. I had sort of a range of management and advisor positions.
I was involved also as a Chief of Staff to Commissioner for Environment when we basically introduced the concept of circular economy. So I was very excited to be involved in that. And for the past four years, I think it's roughly four years now, I've been asked to actually lead the intra-departmental work on sustainable products. It was called Sustainable Product Initiative, which is now largely focussing on implementing the so-called eco-design for sustainable products regulation.
So I work in the Directorate General Environment in the Directorate for Circular Economy. But I also work very closely with my colleagues in departments for energy and industry, because we're actually co-responsible for taking this forward. And as of recently, because part of our duties is also to roll out the rules on textiles under this instrument, I've sort of been also asked to keep an eye, if you want, on implementation of the textiles strategy.
Brilliant. So again, I want to thank you for being here. I just know that I'm imagining your role is a very challenging role, because on one hand, you have sort of a mandate from the political sphere to develop and put these kinds of strategies into practise. But there are so many stakeholders and so many different goals to try to achieve at the same time. So maybe we'll get into that. But again, much kudos to you even before we get started on leading the work.
So let's first put the work in the context of climate action, right? What is the Commission's view on climate action in the context of apparel and textiles? So we know that scientifically, climate is often at the top of the environmental agenda, at the top of the EU agenda in certain cases. Does the Commission want to align itself with science-based informed targets for the textile industry? Should the EU industry and its citizens reduce its emissions in line with the 1.5 pathway?
Should the EU and the textiles industry have a science-based target? How are you all thinking about this particular part of impact environment when it comes to textiles? Thanks a lot, Mike. It's a very good question. Now, maybe first thing to say, because I think it's important, especially in the context that we live in today, is that European Union, European Commission overall remains very committed in its, I'd say, headline goal of becoming a decarbonised net society in 2050.
So everything we do should be seen in this context. I think that's the first thing to say. Now, as it comes to textiles, they obviously are one of the big categories. They're not the biggest. I think they're sixth in terms of their greenhouse gas emissions. So important source, but by far not the biggest. I think they're roughly comparable to restaurants and hotels and recreation and culture.
So as you know, our overall action on climate change sometimes has sectoral measures, but usually those are supported through different instruments if the greenhouse gas emissions are the biggest thing.
When we looked at what to do with textiles back in 2020, I mean, years before, but that was the time of adoption of a strategy, it was clear that we probably, as much as we have to address the greenhouse gas emissions, there are also other impact issues such as, I don't know, water use, land use, and especially also waste generation that we need to work on.
I think this is why our approach set out then and that we're doing our best to implement now was to basically look at the whole, let's say, lifecycle, the whole supply chain and see where there is role for regulation or other soft actions, and then basically combine this in what we're aiming at would be a coherent approach. So no specific targets, but action addressing multiple environmental impacts, and certainly part of that would be also bringing down the emissions footprint.
Okay. So as I hear you, you're saying you're measuring the emissions. This is one piece you just mentioned where textile emissions, according to the latest analysis from the EU, fits in relation to other impact areas, but there are other impact areas besides greenhouse gases that are important priorities for the EU.
So does that mean, just so that I understand, is there any explicit goal for the greenhouse gas emissions part of textiles in terms of reducing it to a certain point that either fits in line with what science says is needed or some other kind of way of measuring whether or not you're achieving greenhouse gas reductions at the pace and scale required? Yeah, you're right.
There is no specific legislative target on greenhouse gases emissions associated with textiles, but the number of things that are either driving down greenhouse gas emissions overall for the industry and some measures that I'm happy also to talk a bit more about in the rest of this podcast are there to sort of address multiple environmental impact problems or actually improve the negative impacts or use or actually get rid of them.
Okay. So let's come back to that because I think this is interesting in terms of how maybe you hope or the EU Commission and the EU hopes to reduce emissions if you don't have a particular goal or target in mind for that. So how do you think then the coming legislation will enable decarbonisation at the pace and scale required? Which particular pieces of legislation do you think will be most effective in this? And I know there's both the textile strategy, textile specific legislation.
There is also broader legislation that's now being renegotiated with the omnibus like CSRD reporting and CES DDD. But what do you think if we don't have targets from the Commission right now for greenhouse gases, for example, why do you think the emissions will go down? What will these pieces of legislation do to enable that? Now we're speaking for a climate we can, and emissions certainly are important.
It's just there are things that actually also, so basically producing things and using them, if we reduce that, that's also going to drive down the emissions. I don't want to oversimplify, but for example, we have, I think it's around 11 kilogrammes of textile of clothes waste that's produced by each European every year. This is roughly sort of same amount as electronic products, less than plastic packaging. But if we reduce that waste, we'll also reduce the emissions.
Again, I'm not oversimplifying. So the main things we're looking at, and actually the strategy sets them out, was actually the instrument we developed, the eco-design for sustainable products regulation. As with many things we do, it's got a horrible acronym. So we just say ESPR, as people do in organisations. So just feel free to correct me, but I'll be generally talking about eco-design.
So just to be clear what I'm referring to, and just maybe a few words of context for those of your listeners that may be less familiar for it. But in Europe, we had for over two decades now, rules being rolled out under the so-called eco-design directive. And one of the things you normal Europeans, it's actually one of the most recognisable things for Europeans our studies show, would be, for example, energy labels.
The energy efficiency of a washing machine, for example, from A to D. What is hidden, so this is the information that tells you if you want to choose to get something that's going to save you money, water, and electricity over its lifetime, you can choose to buy sometimes more expensive one, but highly performing product. Second thing that's sort of below the water is that there are minimum requirements, that basically things that really are not as efficient will never reach European market.
So it was based on this experience that back in the previous commission, there was a decision that we should try to replicate the success of this on a much broader range of products. So that led to a process over the last three, four years that was successfully concluded.
European lawmakers adopted this regulation that is basically a toolbox that says, you know, if products have very high negative environmental impact, and if they have a high potential for improvement, and this can be achieved through setting either rules on their performance or rules on how relevant information should be presented to consumers so they can make their own choice, we can act on it. This is, I think, what is the essence of the regulation.
And just a couple of months ago, we did another important step in rolling it out, which was adopting a working plan. I know it sounds a little bit Soviet, but actually, the reason we do that is to give predictability to the stakeholders, to industry, to consumers, to everybody on what the commission will be working on in the coming five years.
And one of the products that was really highly supported by the vast majority of organisations responding to our public consultation was also textile apparel. So this, I think, is the legislative measure of which there is probably most expectation. And what we're generally doing with these rules, it's a bit early to say because the process of adopting them is actually very analytical. We do very thorough studies. We sort of consult on each step.
So basically, all the European industry, or actually anybody in the world who's following this, has a chance to sort of verify our assumptions as we go. So at this stage, I couldn't say, well, Mike, these are the five things we're going to do under that regulation because we have to follow through the whole process.
But just to make it a bit more clear, what we're looking at is, for example, setting requirements on durability, looking at the many standards that are already out there, setting requirements or information on recyclability, looking at the fibre composition, or overall environmental impact, which could include also the CO2 impacts. And just to say here, I know, we know, we understand that there are trade-offs between some of these things. And this is what we're very carefully looking at.
We completely understand if we do rules that will make clothes uncomfortable, or if it looks like that we are giving a preference to synthetic materials over natural fibres that may not achieve its goal. So this is a bit the complex picture we're looking at. But basically, as for textiles, as for other products, what we're looking at is to get an optimal mix that can be implemented by the industry.
And then we'll see how much of this will be actually binding requirements and how much of this will be information. And then information can either guide the consumers in better choice, or it can also serve, we have rules which allow us to set requirements for public procurement. So for example, if we see we could help with the take up of more sustainable materials, we can do that through this instrument. So that is probably something that has a lot of promise.
Not probably, it's certainly an instrument that a lot is expected from. We heard time and time again that we should sort of be ambitious, but we also have to be sure that we're designing the thing that can actually be rolled out in real life. So that's a bit the challenge we'll be doing.
Then another thing in this regulation, which is maybe less known, but I don't know if you know, but around four, there's different estimates, but according to our estimates is between four to nine percent of textiles that are being sold in Europe never reach the consumer because they're not sold and they're destroyed. So we have another rule, actually legislators decided to introduce a ban on unsold textiles. So that's another thing we'll be doing to basically reducing the amount that's sold.
And then maybe just to mention a couple of other things a bit more quickly. I mean, what I was describing now I'm really familiar with because we've been living with it in professional terms for years now, but I mentioned waste before, which is a huge problem.
So my colleagues are also working on revising the waste law and their two most important things will be to introduce extended producer responsibility schemes at national level and also to set out some minimum requirements on management of textile waste. That's another thing. As I said, I mentioned already information that we will in certain cases, if our analysis shows it can be really effective in affecting consumer opinion, we'll be setting up as a requirement.
But there's also another strand of work that's currently being discussed by European lawmakers, which is the Green Claims Directive, which in a nutshell tries to address the greenwashing and to make sure that sustainability claims are backed with real evidence. Okay, right. So this is great.
You've just summarised some, not all of them, but we know if you're paying attention, we know that there are a whole range of legislative proposals or adopted proposals that will be implemented in the coming years. And you've mentioned a number of them.
And again, the assumption I'm hearing from you is that by implementing these, we're going to take away the worst performing products on the European market, reduce the amount of waste, as some would call that, some degree of overproduction waste in the system, and thereby perhaps make every product perform somewhat better on a number of environmental parameters. Am I getting that theory right? You're getting that theory right.
What I should add is that we're aware that just the regulations on their own will not do everything. So at the time the strategy was adopted, the Commission even had, I think they had a public campaign that was sort of pointing out to what I'm guessing is a bit of a hint behind your question, that there is an issue of overconsumption. But maybe I'll let you finish your question.
Yeah, there is a bit of a sort of question behind my question, which is, there is this approach, which is the efficiency approach. You know this well from working with environmental questions, that we can improve the environmental performance per product. But if we keep consuming more and more products, the theory, as you know, is that we won't be really reducing the overall environmental impact.
We will just be becoming more environmentally efficient in how we use resources and the impacts that we do have. And so this leads to this question about volumes of clothing in the marketplace of overconsumption. And since you brought it up, let's talk about that.
How can you, or are you thinking about that, considering a lot of this legislation is product level legislation that is trying to lift the floor on the performance, but doesn't necessarily, does it sort of address the volumes or overconsumption of the industry overall? How do you all see that?
Yeah, no, that's, and I have to say that's one of the key challenges we sort of have in mind also when we're looking at developing the rules, because what would be the point in making things much more durable if then they're still being thrown away? So there is, I acknowledge there is a part of, say, culture, fashion, that is difficult to address from a public regulator's point of view, because you can't just simply out-regulate it.
But what we see there is, you know, there's a role for what we do as a European Union regulator. We are best when we can use the expectation that we regulate the single market, because that will create level playing field for the companies that they have to, they get to comply with one set of rules for a big number of countries, which goes for importers as much as for companies that they're producing here. So that's what we do well. And here we have expectations.
We know that roughly one-third of clothes that are disposed could be disposed because of quality issues. So we think there is an, if you want, an efficiency issue that will work there. Second is something we can't do alone, but we can help those who are willing to do so, which are the willing consumers, the campaigns, the, our member states' government, who are willing to work on cultural shift, who have campaigns, who are trying to change behaviour.
And to those, we'll help with provision of information, because people can, you know, there is reduction in numbers. If you buy one thing that lasts longer, deliberately, because you want it, you want to use it, then you're maybe not going to buy three things that will last, that will, you know, only last you for a little of time. So again, I'm not pretending we have a silver bullet, but these are the two main approaches where we see hope, I would say, and we know we can achieve improvements.
Whether these improvements go all the way, we'll have to review. We'll have to see. We take it step by step. We roll the rules out. We assess. Yeah. Well, those are a couple of good things you said there. And so I appreciate you are saying this is what we have the leverage to do right now. And so we're going to make the best of it, as I hear you saying. But there's also a point of how do we continue to improve over time.
From your experience working with the EU Commission and these kinds of policies for 20 plus, 25 years, do we have the opportunity to improve upon the legislation as we move forward? Is this something that we can learn and sort of adjust over time? Or do you think once these things are set, we're set for the next decade or so? Well, if I go back to the instrument I was describing before, the eco-design regulation, there actually it's inherent in the system that we review. There's a rule.
We actually have to look at the performance of the rules at least every five years, and ideally even before. So there is this expectation that we continue driving the efficiency, again, under a number of conditions that this makes economic sense, technological innovation allows it, and so on. But this is actually built in the system. It obviously has limits at one point, but this improvement, periodic improvement, and sort of reviewing what the impacts are, is built in the system.
So I feel fairly confident that we have some potential there to actually be up to date. It's not once and for all type of thing. It's constant progress type of thing. Okay. So I know, don't hate me because I keep pushing, but I just want to find different angles for the listeners to hear how you're thinking, how you're working.
As I listen to you, I think, okay, how do you know if we're making progress when it comes to environmental performance, or when it comes to social performance, or even sort of economic performance? Let's just take the environmental side. You've talked about, as we said in the beginning, a number of different parameters. Some are more proxy parameters like waste, right? And then some are more like ultimate impact parameters like GHG emissions.
If we don't have a target or a goal for this, for the industry, how will you all know if we're moving in the right direction? We are actually working on a set of indicators now that we know which products we're dealing with. And overall, basically it's a challenge we share overall with everything we're trying to do in circular economy. So it's a question of looking at material footprints. And also to come back to what you were mentioning before, one of the key objectives we've got is decoupling.
It's basically decoupling economic growth from environmental impacts. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, arguably Europe has been very successful in that so far. And I think this is something we're looking to achieve at a much bigger scale. Can I tell you now, okay, we're going to achieve X percent of reduction in tax sales?
No. Can I tell you in one and a half years from now, when we're going to be much further with the rule and we're going to understand which things we're introducing, we're going to have assumptions. We're going to have assumptions on how can this contribute to reduction of waste in European Union. We'll have assumption on how can this help boost the recyclability or recycling markets.
Are we sure that we've got a sort of a range of additional supply of used clothes that will be coming on the market? So again, we will have assumptions. We'll have to test those assumptions. We'll always consult on them. So the industry and the civil society organisations, the scientists actually have a chance to say, well, here you may be overstating, here you're understating.
So we'll have assumptions and then as things roll out over a period of years, we'll be also checking through our statistical data through things we're looking at, for example, at material footprints. So yeah, we won't be navigating in a fog, but obviously it would be a bit presumptuous to say, you know, I can hit that 27% target. That through design measures would be difficult, but we will certainly know the direction and I certainly hope we'll know the pace of progress.
Okay. So there is potential for you as you come further and have more clarity that there will be some projections that you're going to work with to figure out, you know, how is progress being made? And the discussion will be, what are the indicators that you choose to use to assess progress?
And that, you know, on the greenhouse gas emission piece, the question from our end will be, do you actually sort of estimate the greenhouse gas reduction of emissions from the industry and try to sort of set some sort of goals around that? So that would be interesting to see how that evolves over the next year or so as you do your work. And jump in or push back if I've said something that mischaracterises what you've said.
There's some other questions that I'm just curious how you were all thinking about this. We have one problem and I imagine that there's this attention for every sort of policymaker in terms of economic growth and environmental performance. And you mentioned this decoupling that Europe has been trying to do and maybe you said has been somewhat successful. We find that, you know, there is some positive hope that decarbonisation in the industry could happen with less decoupling.
But again, others say no, if you do the math, as long as the industry grows, it will offset any emission reductions, even if there's all renewable energy in the supply chain. And so there's a little bit of debate about of how optimistic we should be. But I don't know if you have any views on that. When we do, for instance, company level emissions analysis and reporting, there is this possibility that companies could get more efficient, reduce their emissions per product.
But as they grow, they take a sense of more market share, they go beyond just market share, they take more markets and they grow. And so they produce more products and therefore they produce more emissions totally. Do you see that there's a way from policy to address that particular challenge? I think it's a difficult challenge.
And as I said before, we're discussing textiles, but actually a lot of questions you're asking me are the questions we've been banging our heads about for the last decades in policy.
And this is also where I think the whole approach of the Green Deal with this twin structure of continuing fight against climate change, putting circular economy on a much bigger sort of attaching much more importance to it was exactly because there's this belief where we have to do it and we have to get to 2050 in a way that's also economically and socially sustainable. So here, maybe I'll just challenge you back a bit because you're very experienced.
In between 1995 and 2019, we saw an 86% increase in volume of textiles being sold.