ESPR Destruction Ban: What Luxury Must Now Disclose

Since 19 July 2026, large enterprises are prohibited from destroying unsold apparel, clothing accessories and footwear in the EU, under Article 25 of the ESPR — Regulation (EU) 2024/1781. A second, quieter obligation reaches every large maison — including watchmakers and jewelers. Article 24 forces companies that discard unsold consumer products to publish it on their own website: how much they discard, why, and where those products went.

Two Commission acts adopted on 9 February 2026 completed the machinery: the ten derogations that still permit destruction, and the standardised format in which discards will be reported. The operational question for a maison is no longer legal interpretation. It is a board decision — destroy, discount, or channel to certified resale — taken in the knowledge that the numbers will be public.

Two obligations, not one

Most coverage of the July milestone mentions only the destruction ban. The ESPR actually stacks three duties, and the distinctions matter for scope.

Article 23 — prevention, for everyone. Every economic operator must take the measures that can reasonably be expected to prevent the need to destroy unsold consumer products. No size threshold, no product list.

Article 25 — the prohibition, for textiles and footwear. Since 19 July 2026, destroying unsold products listed in Annex VII is prohibited. Annex VII covers apparel and clothing accessories (CN codes 4203, 61, 62, 6504, 6505) and footwear (CN codes 6401 to 6405). Micro and small enterprises are exempt; medium-sized enterprises follow from 19 July 2030. The Commission can extend Annex VII to other product groups by delegated act — watches and jewelry are not in it today, but the mechanism to add them exists.

Article 24 — disclosure, for all consumer products. This is the provision luxury boards should read twice. It is not limited to textiles. Any large enterprise that discards unsold consumer products — a watchmaker crushing dials, a jeweler melting stock, a leather-goods house slashing bags — must disclose it publicly. One clarification on the mechanics: Article 24 has been in force since 18 July 2024. Its first disclosure covers the first full financial year in force — financial year 2025 for a company closing on 31 December, published in 2026. The disclosure cycle is not coming. It has started.

What Article 24 forces into the open

The disclosure, per Article 24(1), comprises four blocks.

Volumes: the number and weight of unsold consumer products discarded per year, differentiated per type or category of products.
Reasons: why the products were discarded, and where applicable the derogation invoked under Article 25(5).
Destinations: the proportion of discarded products sent to each step of the waste hierarchy — preparing for reuse (including refurbishment and remanufacturing), recycling, other recovery including energy recovery, and disposal.
Prevention: measures taken, and measures planned, to prevent destruction of unsold products.

Publication must be "in a clear and visible manner at least on an easily accessible page" of the company's website, renewed annually, with each year's information kept publicly available. Companies already publishing sustainability reporting under the CSRD (Articles 19a or 29a of Directive 2013/34/EU) may fold the disclosure into it. Micro and small enterprises are exempt; medium-sized enterprises join from 19 July 2030.

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2, adopted on 9 February 2026, fixes the details. Its Annex I defines a standardised table per product category: units discarded, total weight in kilograms, and a yes/no flag on packaging included in the weight. It adds the reason for discarding and the percentages routed to each treatment operation — with an explicit "destruction" column and an "unknown" column. Product categories follow the combined nomenclature codes used in customs declarations. Disclosure is due within 12 months of the end of the financial year. The regulation applies from 2 March 2027, to products discarded in financial years from the first full financial year after that date. Until then, the base Article 24 obligation already applies, in free but "clear and visible" form.

Then the numbers leave the company website. By 19 July 2027, and every 36 months after, the Commission must publish consolidated information on the prevalence of destruction per product group, built on these disclosures (Article 26). Note the scope: the consolidation is by product group, not by company — an industry-level prevalence picture, not a public ranking of maisons.

The ten derogations: what still permits destruction

Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296, adopted on 9 February 2026 and applicable from 19 July 2026, lists the ten exhaustive circumstances in which Annex VII products may still be destroyed. Compressed, they cover:

Dangerous products under the General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988.
Non-compliant products whose destruction is required by law or is the proportionate corrective action.
IP-infringing products, including counterfeits, established by a decision, a right-holder notification or a substantiated internal investigation.
Expired licence restrictions: a contract bars any transfer of the product after a period that has now lapsed.
Logos and protected designs that cannot be removed or made permanently inaccessible, making reuse or remanufacturing unsuitable.
Unacceptable damage, deterioration or contamination, where repair is technically impossible or not cost-effective.
Design or manufacturing defects that cannot be repaired.
Refused donations: the product was offered to at least three suitable social economy entities in the EU, or on an easily accessible page of the company's website, for at least eight weeks — and nobody took it.
Donations that found no recipient after reaching a social economy entity.
Products prepared for reuse by a waste treatment operator for which no recipient could be found.

Three of these derogations cut both ways for luxury. Derogation 3 covers the counterfeit seizures a maison legitimately destroys. Derogation 5 is the historical brand-protection play — goods destroyed because de-logoing is not technically feasible — now narrowed to genuine technical infeasibility, not preference. Derogation 8 turns donation into a compliance gateway: a documented, eight-week, three-entity offer that fails becomes a legal basis for destruction, but it also becomes a disclosed data point.

Every derogation carries a paper trail. Article 3 of the delegated regulation requires documentation per derogation type: test reports, self-assessment statements, judicial decisions, licence contracts, inspection reports. The file must be kept for five years and produced within 30 days at the request of authorities. And destruction must follow the waste hierarchy, prioritising recycling over energy recovery and disposal. "We destroyed it" without a file is now a compliance violation, not an inventory adjustment.

Destroy, discount, or recommerce: the board decision

With the legal frame fixed, the choice for unsold Annex VII stock reduces to three routes — each with a distinct disclosure footprint and brand-equity price.

Route	Legal condition	What the public sees	Brand-equity cost
Destroy under derogation	One of ten derogations, documented for five years	Volumes, weight, reasons and % destroyed in the annual Article 24 disclosure	Highest: destruction numbers become public
Discount and alternative channels	Not prohibited by Article 25 — other applicable law still applies	Lower discard volumes in the next disclosure	Markdowns erode pricing power and full-price wait-lists
Donate or channel to certified resale	Documented donation process; controlled secondary channel	High % routed to reuse in the disclosure	Channel leakage if resale is not curated and authenticated

The disclosure column is what changed this summer. Scarcity management used to be invisible: stock quietly written off, incinerated off-site, reported nowhere. Article 24 makes the discard figure a public line item on the maison's own website, and Article 26 will aggregate it across the EU. A maison that destroys 8% of its unsold apparel while marketing circularity will read that number in the press, not in its ERP.

The scale at stake is not marginal. According to the European Commission, citing the European Environment Agency, an estimated 4 to 9% of textiles sold in Europe are destroyed before use. That is between 264,000 and 594,000 tonnes per year.

What public numbers do to brand equity

Luxury's historical rationale for destruction was protection: of scarcity, of price integrity, of the grey-market boundary. The ESPR does not forbid the rationale — it prices it. For Annex VII products at a large enterprise, destruction is now lawful only under a derogation. Each derogation-based destruction must be documented, with the file kept five years — and it still surfaces as a public figure with a stated reason in the annual disclosure.

Three second-order effects follow. Comparability — but not yet: the standardised table of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 applies only from 2 March 2027, for financial years from the first full financial year after that date. Until then, disclosures follow no common format and are not directly comparable across companies. Once the format binds, discard figures will be line-comparable across the industry, by product category, in kilograms and units. Narrative exposure: the "unknown" and "destruction" columns exist precisely to make vague answers visible; an unexplained gap is itself a story. Prevention as a public commitment: the disclosure includes measures planned, so next year's table reads as a scorecard against this year's promises.

The strategic inversion is worth stating plainly. A maison that routes unsold stock to a certified, authenticated secondary channel converts a disclosure liability into a reuse percentage it will want to publish. That requires knowing, item by item, what left the primary channel, in what condition, and into whose hands. It is the same verifiable item-level identity that powers authentication and the coming Digital Product Passport.

The limits of what we know

Intellectual honesty about this file.

Enforcement practice is unwritten. Penalties are set by member states; how actively national authorities will audit disclosures and derogation files is not yet predictable.
Disclosure is volume, not value. The format asks for units and kilograms, not retail value. Destroyed value will be inferred by journalists, not reported by maisons.
The standardised format lands later than the duty. Article 24 disclosures are due now, but the Annex I format applies only from 2 March 2027, for financial years from the first full financial year after that date. Early disclosures will vary in shape.
Scope will move. Annex VII covers textiles and footwear today; Article 25(3) lets the Commission add product groups based on the very disclosures Article 24 collects. Watch and jewelry discard figures, published from this cycle on, are the evidence base for any future extension.
Aggregation starts in 2027. The Commission's first consolidated publication under Article 26 is due by 19 July 2027; its methodology and granularity are not yet public.

Galileo's take

Galileo's take: the destruction ban is the first ESPR obligation with reputational teeth, and disclosure is the sharper edge. The ban constrains one category; the disclosure exposes all of them. Maisons that treat Article 24 as a reporting chore will publish a number once a year and spend the other 364 days hoping nobody reads it. Maisons that treat it as a forcing function will redesign the end of the product life they control: certified resale with authenticated items, documented donation, repair over write-off. Their reuse percentage will read as proof, not apology. That is precisely the infrastructure Galileo Protocol builds: item-level digital twins, interoperable attestations for lifecycle events, personal data off-chain, schemas published openly in our specifications. Explore the documentation or contact us to design a certified-resale or end-of-life channel your next disclosure can be proud of.

Sources

Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 (ESPR), EUR-Lex, 13 June 2024: Article 23 (prevention duty), Article 24 (disclosure fields, website publication, annual cycle, first disclosure covering the first full financial year in force, micro/small exemption, medium-sized from 19 July 2030), Article 25 (prohibition from 19 July 2026, Annex VII scope, delegated-act power to extend), Article 26 (Commission consolidated publication by 19 July 2027), Annex VII (CN codes 4203, 61, 62, 6504, 6505, 6401-6405). Consulted 29 August 2026.
Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296, EUR-Lex, 9 February 2026, published in the Official Journal on 22 April 2026: ten exhaustive derogations (Article 2), including the donation derogation (three social economy entities or website offer, eight weeks) and the logo-removal derogation; documentation kept five years, produced within 30 days (Article 3); applicable from 19 July 2026. Consulted 29 August 2026.
Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2, EUR-Lex, 9 February 2026, published in the Official Journal on 10 February 2026: Annex I standardised disclosure format (units, weight, packaging flag, reasons, percentages per treatment route including destruction and unknown, prevention measures), disclosure within 12 months of financial year end, CN-code delimitation, applicable from 2 March 2027. Consulted 29 August 2026.
European Commission, ESPR page: adoption of the implementing and delegated acts on destruction of unsold consumer products on 9 February 2026; disclosure duty applying across all product sectors. Consulted 29 August 2026.
European Commission, Ban on destruction of unsold clothes and shoes enters into application, 17 July 2026: application from 19 July 2026, medium-sized companies from 2030, five-year record keeping, EEA estimate of 4-9% of textiles destroyed before use (264,000-594,000 tonnes per year). Consulted 29 August 2026.

FAQ

Does the ESPR destruction ban apply to watches, jewelry and leather goods?

The prohibition of Article 25 covers only the products listed in Annex VII: apparel, clothing accessories and footwear. Watches, jewelry and most leather goods are not in Annex VII today, although the Commission can extend the list by delegated act. But the disclosure obligation of Article 24 covers all unsold consumer products. A large watchmaker or jeweler that discards unsold stock must already publish the number, weight, reasons and destination of those products on its website.

When did the ESPR destruction ban take effect?

The prohibition of Article 25 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 applies since 19 July 2026 for large enterprises. Medium-sized enterprises follow from 19 July 2030; micro and small enterprises are exempt. The delegated regulation listing the ten derogations, Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296, applies from the same date, 19 July 2026.

What exactly must a large company disclose about unsold products?

Under Article 24 of the ESPR: the number and weight of unsold consumer products discarded per year, by product type or category; the reasons for discarding and, where applicable, the derogation invoked; the proportion sent to preparing for reuse, recycling, other recovery and disposal; and the measures taken and planned to prevent destruction. The information must sit on an easily accessible page of the company's website, updated annually. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 sets a standardised format, applicable from 2 March 2027, with disclosure due within 12 months of the end of the financial year.

Can a luxury brand still destroy unsold stock legally?

Only within the ten derogations of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/296: dangerous or non-compliant products, intellectual-property infringement including counterfeits, expired licence restrictions, logos or protected designs that cannot be removed, unacceptable damage or defects that cannot be repaired, refused donations after a documented attempt, and a few residual cases. Each destruction must be documented, and the documentation kept for five years and produced within 30 days at the request of authorities.

When is the first ESPR disclosure due?

Article 24 has been in force since 18 July 2024, and the first disclosure must cover the first full financial year during which the Regulation was in force. For a company closing its books on 31 December, that is financial year 2025, to be published in 2026. The standardised format of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 applies to products discarded in financial years from the first full financial year after its date of application, 2 March 2027.

What does public disclosure change for brand equity?

Destruction volumes stop being an internal supply-chain metric and become a public figure on the maison's own website — directly comparable across companies only once the standardised format of Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/2 applies, from 2 March 2027. From 19 July 2027, the Commission must also publish consolidated EU-level information on the prevalence of destruction per product group. A maison's discard numbers will be readable by journalists, NGOs, investors and competitors — and judged against its sustainability communication.