The Ecodesign Regulation: new rules for almost every product.

Ecodesign rules are nothing new in the EU: the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC has governed for more than 15 years how efficient washing machines, heaters, vacuum cleaners and power supplies must be. From today's perspective it had one decisive design flaw: it applied exclusively to energy-related products – and it was a directive, which every member state first had to transpose into national law.

The Ecodesign Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 – officially the "Regulation establishing a framework for the setting of ecodesign requirements for sustainable products", short ESPR – removes both limitations. Since 18 July 2024 it applies directly in all 27 member states, with no national implementing laws. And its scope covers almost every physical good placed on the EU market: textiles, furniture, steel, tyres, mattresses, chemicals, electronics – regardless of whether the manufacturer is based in the EU or not. The main exemptions are food, feed, medicinal products and living organisms.

Why such a sweeping overhaul? With the Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan, the EU is pursuing a clear goal: products should no longer be efficient only in use, but across their entire life cycle – from material selection through use and repair to recycling. The old instrument was not built for that. The full legal text is available on EUR-Lex.

Important in practice: the regulation is a framework regulation. It does not itself set concrete limit values for any industry. The binding requirements per product group arrive step by step through delegated acts – each with a transition period of roughly 18 months. If you want to understand how the ESPR specifically underpins the product passport, see our page on the ESPR regulation.

One of the most publicly debated innovations is written directly into the regulation itself – no delegated act required: the ban on destroying unsold consumer products. The background is well documented, especially in fashion and e-commerce: shredding or incinerating returns and excess stock is often cheaper than restocking or reselling them.

The rule phases in gradually:

• From 19 July 2026, large companies may no longer destroy unsold textiles and footwear. Textiles and footwear are deliberately the first category – this is where the problem is biggest.
• Medium-sized companies get a transition period and are covered from 2030; small and micro enterprises remain exempt from the ban.
• Further product groups can be added to the ban by the European Commission via delegated act – electronics being an obvious candidate.

The ban is flanked by disclosure duties: companies that discard unsold consumer products must publish annually how many products they discarded, for which reasons and what happened to them – broken down by preparation for re-use, recycling, incineration or landfill. This reporting obligation kicks in ahead of the actual ban and creates transparency pressure: a company that must publicly report burning brand-new goods usually changes its processes faster than the law demands.

In practice this means returns management, inventory planning and secondary sales channels (outlet, donation, refurbishment) become compliance topics. And the evidence for all of it will eventually live where all product data converges – in the product passport.