The European Environmental Bureau (EEB) has urged the European Commission to ensure the forthcoming Textile Strategy recognizes pressures and impact linked to clothing, footwear and household textiles in Europe is the result of a business model based on the sale of ever-more new products made from finite virgin resources.

EEB has urged the commission to maintain economic growth in the global textile and clothing industry through the extraction and exploitation of resources, from raw materials to labour. It should also address the textile industry’s growth in material use to protect the life-sustaining earth functions people rely on and to remain within a safe operating space for humanity. Additionally, policymakers should set the textile sector on a path to a fair and sustainable transition.

The EEB states, the Textile Strategy is an opportunity to set an overarching framework that ties together the various new and existing legal instruments affecting a textile product, from production to end-of-life.

These instruments should be based on the principles of absolute resource-use reduction, achieving a toxic-free environment, absolute reduction in climate and environmental impact, and the respect of fundamental human rights, it said.