A fashion brand that says nothing about its environmental impact is not safe from scrutiny: since 1 October 2026, a third party can calculate and publish the environmental cost of its products without asking for its opinion. This guide explains how to keep control of that figure, step by step.
What has changed for textile brands
Decree No. 2025-957 of 6 September 2025 governs how the environmental cost of clothing is calculated and communicated in France. It entered into force on 1 October 2025, and display remains voluntary for brands. The cost is expressed in impact points and covers the garment's whole life cycle: raw materials, manufacturing, transport, use and end of life.
The text did, however, provide two transitional measures, which ended on 1 October 2026. Until then, a third party could only calculate and communicate a brand's cost with the brand's agreement, or if the brand had already published it on the official portal. Now anyone can do so from available data, or data estimated from it (article D. 541-244 of the French Environmental Code). A silent brand can therefore find a figure published in its place.
Are you concerned? No general obligation, but two effects to know
The decree does not make displaying the environmental cost mandatory, so there is no general obligation tied to a turnover or volume threshold. Two mechanisms nevertheless apply to every brand:
- If you communicate an environmental score (carbon rating, in-house score, impact on one or more criteria), you must also communicate the environmental cost, without contradiction or risk of confusion (article D. 541-245). Since 1 October 2026 this rule applies in all cases, whereas before it only applied if the cost had already been calculated and communicated.
- If you communicate nothing, a retailer, an NGO or a comparison platform can publish a figure calculated from available data.
Some products fall outside the scheme, including household linen, single-use garments, garments with electronic components and those where more than 20% of the mass comes from materials not modelled in the calculation method.
Calculating your environmental cost with Ecobalyse
The calculation relies on the Ecobalyse method and on the official environmental display portal, where the brand declares its data. The result is expressed per 100 grams of product, so that garments of different weights can be compared fairly. For the detail of the calculation, our article on how to calculate a garment's environmental cost with Ecobalyse walks through it step by step.
Three methodological points are worth anticipating: gather information on materials and manufacturing countries, publish the cost on the portal before any communication, and keep the supporting evidence for the calculation, which must be available to authorised inspection officers.
Where and how to display it
The cost must be accessible at the time of purchase, in store as well as online. If your communication on a score uses a physical medium (label, packaging), the communication on the cost must use one too. The practical challenge is consistency: the same figure, at the same moment, on the label, the online product page and the sales materials.
Two timing rules then govern the life of the figure:
- a brand may update its cost at most once every three months (article D. 541-243);
- when the brand calculates or updates its own cost, that figure becomes the reference, and a third party that had published another value must update it within a period not exceeding one month (article D. 541-244).
Calculating your own environmental cost is therefore a way to take back control: the brand's figure prevails over a third party's.
Preparing for what comes next: product information beyond cost
The environmental cost is only one piece of the product information that fashion brands will have to keep up to date and make accessible. The Digital Product Passport (DPP) is the next step: to understand its infrastructure, read our article on the launch of the Central DPP Registry. You can also revisit what changes on 1 October 2026 for the background to the shift.
Key takeaways
Since 1 October 2026, the textile environmental cost can be published without you, but not without you being able to react: check whether you are concerned, calculate with Ecobalyse, display consistently and keep the figure up to date. The simplest approach is to act before a third party does it for you.
