ESPR compliance for apparel brands

Article 25 of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation prohibits large economic operators from destroying specific categories of unsold consumer products, including textiles, clothing accessories, and footwear listed in Annex VII. The ban has applied to large economic operators since 19 July 2026 and reaches medium-sized economic operators on 19 July 2030.¹ Energy recovery and direct-to-recycling are also classified as destruction unless a derogation applies.

Article 24 applies to large economic operators placing covered consumer products on the EU market, regardless of country of incorporation. Under Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC, an enterprise is an SME if it has fewer than 250 employees and either annual turnover not exceeding €50 million or an annual balance-sheet total not exceeding €43 million. A large enterprise is therefore any enterprise that has 250 or more employees, or that exceeds both the €50 million turnover and €43 million balance-sheet thresholds.⁶ Medium-sized enterprises (50 to 249 employees, with annual turnover not exceeding €50 million or annual balance-sheet total not exceeding €43 million, and that do not qualify as small under Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC) are subject to the destruction ban from 19 July 2030 and to disclosure obligations from a date specified in subsequent implementing acts.⁶

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2, published in the Official Journal on 10 February 2026, defines the standardised disclosure format. It applies to large economic operators from 2 March 2027.² Until then, large economic operators must still disclose under Article 24, but in the absence of the standardised template. Flexireo exports align with the Annex I structure so disclosures published before March 2027 are forward-compatible.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 establishes that a documented difference greater than 10% between an entity's published Article 24 disclosure and the records held by its waste-treatment operators triggers a non-compliance review.² The threshold is small, and the burden of proof sits with the brand. Unit-level traceability and structured waste-treatment operator confirmations are the operational habits that keep the gap below 10%.

Yes. Under the regulation, both energy recovery (incineration with energy capture) and direct-to-recycling are classified as destruction when applied to covered unsold consumer products by a large economic operator after 19 July 2026, unless a derogation under Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296 applies.³ Preparation for reuse and reuse-as-such remain compliant pathways without derogation. Where a derogation applies, the destruction must still follow the priority order of the waste hierarchy set out in Article 4 of Directive 2008/98/EC (Waste Framework Directive), prioritising recycling over other recovery (including energy recovery) and disposal.⁷

The French Loi AGEC (Decree 2022-748 of 29 April 2022) is a national French anti-waste law that pre-dates ESPR; it has been in force since 1 January 2022 for non-food unsold products. ESPR is an EU-wide regulation that applies in every member state. AGEC has stricter extended producer responsibility mechanics through Refashion and SYDEREP; ESPR has stricter disclosure standardisation. Brands operating in France must comply with both, and the two regimes overlap rather than substitute.

Medium-sized enterprises (50 to 249 employees, with annual turnover not exceeding €50 million or annual balance-sheet total not exceeding €43 million, and that do not qualify as small under Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC) are subject to the Article 25 destruction ban from 19 July 2030.¹⁶ Disclosure obligations under Article 24 are expected to extend to medium-sized economic operators on the same timeline, with the exact date specified in subsequent implementing acts. Flexireo recommends medium-sized economic operators start building the operational audit trail now, because the data captured during rework is what any future audit will rely on.

CN code reporting under Annex I of Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 is 2-digit by default for most product categories. Categories listed in Annex II of the Implementing Regulation, which includes most textile, clothing accessory, and footwear categories, require 4-digit reporting.² Aggregated unit counts and weight in kilograms must be reported per CN code.

Article 24 disclosure must be published on a publicly accessible website maintained by the economic operator, within 12 months of the end of each financial year covered by the disclosure. The disclosure must remain accessible for at least five years. Flexireo generates the publication-ready file in the Annex I format; hosting is the brand's responsibility.

Flexireo captures unit-level traceability from intake forward, records the triage decision that routes each batch (rework, prep for reuse, donation, recycling, other recovery, or disposal), time-stamps every status change with operator identification, attaches photo evidence at the moment of disposition, records waste-treatment operator confirmations, and retains evidence automatically for five years. The data populates the five Article 24 categories of information for every batch, not just rework, as a byproduct of running the operation, not as a separate compliance project. See How it works for the seven-stage lifecycle, or book a 30-minute demo to walk through it on your data.

It covers both, with a boundary. The defined term "unsold consumer product" (Article 2(37) ESPR) includes surplus stock, excess inventory and deadstock, and it also includes products a consumer returns under their right of withdrawal under Article 9 of Directive 2011/83/EU, or during any longer return window the trader offers.¹¹⁰ So returned goods that flow back through reverse logistics and are then discarded as waste are in scope for both the Article 24 disclosure and the Article 25 destruction ban. Returns made on a different legal basis, for example a faulty-goods return under the legal conformity guarantee, are not literally withdrawal returns; once such units are back as unsold stock and discarded, they are captured on that basis.

No. Once a consumer has bought and kept a product, anything they do with it afterwards is post-consumer waste, governed by the Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC) and extended-producer-responsibility schemes, not by ESPR Articles 24 and 25.⁷ Those two articles are triggered only when an economic operator discards as waste stock it holds that was never finally sold, including withdrawal-period returns.

Yes. Article 2(37) explicitly lists surplus stock, excess inventory and deadstock, and it does not matter how long a product was available for purchase.¹ If you discard unsold stock as waste it falls within Article 24 disclosure, and if it is an Annex VII category (apparel, clothing accessories, footwear) the Article 25 destruction ban also applies from 19 July 2026 for large economic operators.¹