Push for wool industry to speak up again against Europe's PEF legislation

Just days remain in the second public consultation for the proposed product environmental footprint category rules for apparel in footwear.

AWI began its Make the Label Count campaign in 2021 to try and shape the direction of the PEF methodology and in 2022 published a white paper last year, calling for the methodology to take microplastic pollution, plastic waste and circularity into account.

Now the Make the Label Count campaign has called for members of the industry to point out the flaws in the planned laws.

In its current version, the category rules scores are expected to result in fossil fuel-based fibres such as polyester, being deemed the most sustainable,with natural fibres scoring the worst.

Fox and Lillie national wool brokerage manager, Eamon Timms said in its current version the laws would act as a red light for wool in terms of selling garments in Europe.

"Sound environmental and scientific reasoning is not at the heart of the current proposal and the fact that they do not take into account the microplastics generated by synthetics is a real problem," he said.

"End of life is also a real problem for synthetic garments because there's so much of it that goes into landfill and wrong assumptions are being made about end of life.

"Even though they talk about synthetic garments lasting for a long time and therefore you need to buy less of them, most people throw garments out because they're sick of wearing it or the fashion changes or a myriad of reasons.

Mr Timms said it was vital that members of the wool industry took the opportunity to voice their concerns.

"We need as many woolgrowers and industry participants also to have their voice heard because the more people who do put up their hand on this, the more they will have to take notice," he said.

"It's not really easy for farmers to hop in their tractors and drive into Brussels but it's a lot easier to put in a submission online to be heard in another way."

Speaking at the International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide last week Australian Wool Innovation sustainability manager Emma Gittoes said there had been a rise in green marketing and subsequently greenwashing over the last decade.

"Governments and consumer authorities across the world are really cracking down on this and the EU is really leading the charge in this space but there are huge issues in the way they're planning to do this," she said.

"The rest of the world is watching them very closely so we could potentially see cookie cutters of what's happening there happening in other jurisdictions globally."

The public consultation, accessible online via the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform, will be open until Sunday April 28.