Reuters
France’s lower house of parliament on Thursday passed a bill seeking to impose penalties on ultra-fast fashion products sold by China’s SHEIN and other companies in an effort to reduce their environmental impact.
The bill calls for gradually increasing fines of up to 10 euros ($11) per item of clothing by 2030, as well as a ban on advertising such products.
All senators who voted unanimously approved the bill, which will now head to the Senate before becoming law.
The popularity of fashion retailers Shein and Temu, which have ultra-flexible supply chains that allow them to scale orders based on demand, is disrupting the retail industry, while incumbents like Zara and H&M still rely heavily on predicting shopper preferences.
“The apparel industry has evolved towards short-lived fashions combining increasing volume with low prices, creating a purchasing impulse and a need for constant renewal, influencing consumer buying habits, not without environmental, social and economic consequences,” the bill states.
03:39 – Source: CNN
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Shine said in a statement to Reuters that the clothes it produces meet existing demand and therefore unsold rates have consistently remained in the low single digits, while traditional vendors can experience waste of up to 40 percent.
He added that the bill’s only effect would be to “worsen the purchasing power of French consumers who are already feeling the effects of the cost of living crisis.”
Writing in X newspaper, France’s Environment Minister Christophe Bechou called the bill a “major step forward”, adding that “a major step has been taken to reduce the textile industry’s environmental impact.”
Jade Gao/AFP/Getty Images
Workers make clothes at a clothing factory that supplies SHEIN in southern China’s Guangdong province in July 2022.
The bill comes after the French Environment Ministry announced it would propose a ban on second-hand clothing exports to the European Union to tackle the worsening textile waste problem.
Last year, France introduced a repair scheme to encourage people to repair their old clothes and shoes instead of throwing them away. The French government has pledged 154 million euros ($168 million) to the initiative, and shoppers will be reimbursed up to 25 euros ($27.20) for each garment they repair. Refashion, the nonprofit tasked with running the scheme, said 3.3 billion items of clothing, household linen and footwear were on the French market in 2022. At the time, the French environment ministry said the French throw out 700,000 tonnes of clothing every year, two-thirds of which ends up in landfills.
The fashion industry is one of the world’s most polluting, accounting for 3-5% of global carbon dioxide emissions, according to a fashion industry report from consulting firm McKinsey, which adds that around half of the fabric produced by the industry is petroleum-based polyester.
