ESPR Destruction Ban: What Luxury Must Now Disclose
The EU bans destruction of certain unsold goods and requires disclosure of discarded stock. Check product scope, exemptions and reporting dates.
Large businesses must distinguish two ESPR duties: a ban on destroying specified unsold goods, and a broader duty to disclose discarded unsold consumer products. A product outside the current ban can still be relevant to the disclosure.
ESPR is the EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. The Commission's 17 July 2026 announcement confirms that the destruction ban began applying on 19 July 2026 for the covered large businesses.
Check the product and the company's size
Article 25 and Annex VII cover the listed apparel, clothing accessories and footwear. They do not currently impose the same ban on watches or jewellery.
Micro and small enterprises are exempt from these article 24 and 25 obligations; the relevant extension to medium-sized enterprises begins on 19 July 2030. The regulation also has a separate prevention duty. Do not use the size exemption as a general instruction to destroy stock without considering other applicable rules.
Consider a fictional large company with unsold shoes and finished watches. It needs to assess the shoes under the current ban. It should not classify the watches as prohibited merely because they are luxury goods, but discarded unsold watches can still fall within the disclosure duty. Manufacturing components should not automatically be treated as finished consumer products.
Record what was discarded and where it went
Article 24 concerns quantities and weight, reasons for discarding, treatment destinations and measures to prevent destruction. It is broader than Annex VII.
The first disclosure covers the first full financial year after the regulation entered into force on 18 July 2024. For a calendar-year company, that is 2025 information disclosed in 2026.
The standardised format comes later. Implementing Regulation 2026/2, adopted on 9 February 2026, applies from 2 March 2027, beginning with the first full financial year after that date. For a calendar-year company, its first covered year is 2028, with disclosure due by the end of 2029. The existing disclosure duty does not wait for that format.
This distinction matters when comparing companies. A legal application date is not the date on which every company publishes a first table in a common format.
A permitted exception needs its own evidence
Delegated Regulation 2026/296 sets narrowly defined derogations from the destruction ban. A desire to protect scarcity or price is not, on its own, a general exemption.
For example, the donation route in article 2(h) includes conditions concerning an offer to at least three suitable social-economy entities or an accessible offer on the company's website, for at least eight weeks. It is subject to the provision's other conditions, including the relationship to the preceding derogations. A checklist containing only “three organisations contacted” would omit a lawful alternative and the remaining requirements.
Keep the reason, supporting documents and actual treatment route together. A product passport may help identify the item; it does not grant permission to destroy it.
Separate prevention from waste treatment
If the fictional company sells its shoes before discarding them, it may prevent waste. That sale does not automatically increase the “preparing for reuse” share in a table describing discarded products and their waste-treatment destinations.
For the same reason, a certified resale channel is not a universal compliance solution. The company must describe what actually happened to the goods and assess the applicable rule.
Frequently asked questions
Are watches covered by the current destruction ban?
Watches are not among the current Annex VII categories covered by article 25. The separate disclosure duty concerns unsold consumer products more broadly, subject to its company-size rules.
When does the standardised disclosure format first cover a calendar-year business?
Regulation 2026/2 applies from 2 March 2027 to products discarded from the first full financial year after that date. For a calendar-year business, that means 2028 data, disclosed within twelve months after year-end, by the end of 2029.
Does resale automatically count as preparing waste for reuse?
No. Selling a product before it is discarded can prevent waste. Preparing for reuse is a treatment route for discarded products. The disclosure should reflect the actual route, not treat every second-hand sale as waste treatment.
The Galileo documentation explains how product records may support this evidence trail. Start with the legal scope and stock records before choosing the technology.