Recital (39)

In order to increase the circularity and environmental sustainability of textiles and to reduce the adverse impacts on climate and the environment, Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 provides for the development of binding ecodesign requirements for textile and footwear products, which will, depending on what the impact assessment will show to be beneficial for increasing textile environmental sustainability, regulate durability, reusability, reparability, and fibre-to-fibre recyclability of textiles, and mandatory recycled fibre content in textiles. Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 also regulates the presence of substances of concern to allow their minimisation and tracking with a view to reducing waste generation and improving recycling, as well as the prevention and reduction of synthetic fibres shed into the environment to significantly reduce microplastic release. Furthermore, the modulation of extended producer responsibility fees is an effective economic instrument to incentivise more sustainable textile design, which in turn will lead to improved design that is in line with circularity principles. In order to provide a strong incentive for ecodesign, while taking into account the objectives of the internal market and the composition of the textile sector which is primarily composed of SMEs, it is necessary to harmonise criteria for the modulation of extended producer responsibility fees on the basis of the most relevant ecodesign parameters to enable the treatment of textiles in line with the waste hierarchy. The modulation of those fees according to the ecodesign criteria should be based on the ecodesign requirements and their measurement methodologies that are adopted pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 for textile and footwear products or, only where adopted, pursuant to other Union law establishing harmonised sustainability criteria and measurement methods for textile and footwear products. It is appropriate to empower the Commission to adopt harmonised rules for the fee modulation to ensure the alignment of the fee modulation criteria with those product requirements.