Industry News
How Europe is Using Taxes to Slow Down Fast Fashion
Did you know that making one cotton t-shirt uses around 2,700 liters of water, roughly equivalent to the amount a person drinks in three years? Fast fashion may offer cheap, on-trend clothes, but it also generates an annual 12kg of textile waste per person in Europe, with only 1% of this waste being recycled to make new garments.
The fast fashion industry produces too much, too fast, and too cheap, but there are ways to slow it down –and too cheap, but there are ways to slow it down. In recent years, the EU and European countries have begun to propose and implement taxes and legislation that do just this.
EU: no more tax breaks for fast fashion. Until 2021, millions of packages from platforms such as Shein and Temu – all valued at under €22 – arrived in Europe without paying VAT. This gave them an unfair advantage over local businesses, but since 2021, all non-EU imports have been subject to VAT.
The European Commission wants to go further and has proposed a processing fee of €2 for each shipment to the EU. It also wants to eliminate the current €150 import tariff exemption, so that even small orders will pay customs duties.
These measures would prevent non-EU sellers from artificially splitting orders, and would strengthen control over products that are often manufactured under unsustainable conditions or with poor labor practices. The impact could be huge; in 2024, 91% of all e-commerce shipments valued at less than €150 came from China.
In 2024, the European Union approved Directive (EU) 2024/825 to combat greenwashing. From 2026, brands will not be able to present themselves as “carbon neutral” or “eco-friendly” without verifiable evidence, nor will they be able to hide information about the durability or repairability of garments.
)