ESPR Knowledge Gap in the Fashion Industry: Why Education and Regulation Need to Keep Pace

interview

Europe’s new eco-design laws will shake up the global fashion industry and most players are not prepared for it. Asian factories are struggling with data requirements. At the same time, universities are slow to update their design curricula. The knowledge gap is widening as regulators and investors push for rapid change. At the center of this change is this year’s Redress x TAL Ecodesign Challenge. It shows how tomorrow’s designers and today’s suppliers are trying out new approaches. These paths are intended to combine creativity, compliance and commercial reality.

Speaking to FashionUnited, Christina Dean, founder of the educational NGO Redress, emphasized the urgency of integrating ESPR into education and supply chains. “Although we have been talking for years about design being the starting point for the transition to a circular economy, the upcoming ESPR signals that we are running out of time,” she says. “Designers and companies that are still in denial need to abandon this attitude. We need to see a lot of design changes in a short period of time.”

In the textile world, ESPR is a big change. The EU is one of the world’s largest importers of clothing. Around 70 percent of their textiles are made in Asia. This means that the impact of regulation will be felt across global supply chains. According to a report by UBS, the fashion industry is already responsible for ten percent of global carbon emissions. At the same time, 85 percent of textiles end up in landfills. Regulation is intended to reverse these trends, but it puts pressure on an industry where margins are already tight.

The biggest challenge for delivery companies at the moment is the lack of clarity. “It’s a big challenge to collect data from a very complex supply chain. Data collection also has to be consistent. For example, we’re starting to work on DPP with some of our larger customers. But it’s not yet clear what data is required and how it needs to be prepared,” explains TAL President Rod Henderson. Even small details such as fabric inserts lead to compromises. They improve durability but reduce recyclability.

Redress’s Ecodesign Challenge 2025 integrates ESPR into the structure

It is also essential for designers entering the industry to know exactly what is expected of them in the job market. Similar to delivery companies, there is a gap between knowledge and application. Dean emphasizes that the challenge goes beyond individual designers. Current university curricula often lack training in the area of ​​ESPR. “From fashion lecturers to deans at Asian and other universities, most have not heard of ESPR. The integration of new design content into curricula is extremely slow because they are already full. That’s why we need to increase the urgency now, otherwise we will be faced with a big mess later.”

Dean adds that universities should see ESPR readiness as a competitive advantage. Just as delivery companies risk losing business if they cannot demonstrate compliance, universities could lose students if they cannot prove their relevance. Positioning circularity and regulatory competence as a skill could become a benchmark for academic excellence. Ultimately, it would also improve the employability of graduates.

To fill this gap, Redress expanded its relationship with TAL this year. The annual Ecodesign Challenge continued at TAL Apparel’s Vietnamese factory. Ten Redress Design Award finalists from nine countries were tasked with redesigning defective shirts and waste materials into commercially usable, gender-neutral garments for the Redress alumni brand Jann Bangcaras. Within 1.5 days, the young designers had to integrate at least two of four key ESPR ecodesign requirements: durability, repairability, recyclability and minimal waste generation.

For many, this was their first direct encounter with the ESPR. By embedding legal principles into real-world prototype development, Redress and TAL aim to prepare the next generation of designers and their supply chains for a future. In this future, compliance and competitiveness are inextricably linked. “Designers have understood sustainability in their normal practice. But they have never been able to articulate it clearly within the framework of the ESPR. This regulation will lead us to a common language – and they need to learn that language,” explains Dean.

Filipino finalist Mara San Pedro said during the competition that the biggest challenge was waste reduction: “When you upcycle a garment as complex as a shirt, you have to consider all parts of the shirt. You have to make sure that you create as little waste as possible and that you can scale production.” Canadian finalist Wen Hanzhang said he had to design “not just for aesthetics, but also as an engineer” and justify every decision. Nevertheless, he sees the ESPR as a creative stimulus and not as a restriction. “You think about new solutions and work with what you have. So I believe that the ESPR values ​​encourage our creativity. We have to design within the realities and the real constraints that affect the environment.”

“ESPR should be music to the ears of designers…”

Of course, the responsibility for the ESPR does not lie solely with the young designers. They will likely have limited influence on the compliance of the brands they work for. “In the best case scenario, we’ve seen that hiring sustainable designers creates excitement within design teams. But of course, this has no impact on compliance or strategy at the executive level,” notes Dean.

The size of a company also plays a role in manufacturing. For companies like TAL, which work with a wide range of companies, compliance requires the delivery of sustainable products at scale. Henderson says larger brands often come with sustainability teams and detailed expectations; Smaller actors, on the other hand, are less well prepared. “The larger organizations are more focused on meeting regulatory requirements and have integrated sustainability teams,” says Henderson. “With smaller organizations it’s often a more collaborative process – sometimes we train them, and sometimes they train us. It’s really a give and take – it’s not a single person’s responsibility, it’s an industry-wide responsibility.”

This responsibility comes with costs. Henderson noted that TAL has invested in staff and systems to prepare for the ESPR. But not all factories can afford this. “Initially, the costs of compliance are very real. Margins in the clothing business are very small and cost pressures are high. But knowing that the trend is towards greater sustainability, the long-term opportunities will outweigh these costs,” he says. UBS confirms this and notes that urgent investments in circular economy and digitalization are necessary for Asian delivery operations. This is the only way they can remain competitive on the European market.

Less prepared markets such as Bangladesh or Vietnam are at risk. There, smaller factories with limited capacity may struggle to adapt. You risk losing customers if resources are not quickly reallocated to training and compliance. “If you’re a small factory with 20 sewing lines producing for one brand, it’s very difficult to make all these investments to comply with regulations,” says Henderson. Investments must not be limited to factories and IT systems; they must also flow into people. Without balanced investment in education, both at the university level and in corporate training, the skills gap between Europe’s regulatory expectations and Asia’s production capacities will widen.

This only confirms Dean von Redress’s perspective: ESPR is not a future problem, it is already here. Of course, integrating such values ​​into an already overburdened education system is a challenge. This won’t happen overnight. But when designers are ahead of the curve, they can internalize this knowledge to demonstrate their competence in their future careers. “At the heart of all designers is the desire to continually create something better and more appropriate for our world and for the customers they design for. That’s why I think the ESPR should be seen as a challenge to do better, not a whip of punishment. It should be music to designers’ ears,” concludes Dean.

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