An Italian eco-score, read at the source.
A bill before the Italian Senate would create a national eco-score for textiles, graded A to E. The class would be the criterion by which the State taxes, restricts advertising and grants incentives. It is a bill and not a law. It defines no method, and that is why nobody can compute a class today, ourselves included.
What it would create
The bill would assign every textile product a class from A to E, where A is the lowest impact. Five parameters would decide it: the conditions and places of production, the origin and composition of materials, logistics and distribution, durability and repairability, and working conditions along the supply chain.
The class is not designed as a label for shoppers, and nothing in the text puts a letter on a garment. It is the criterion by which the State would apply restrictive measures: limits on advertising, exclusion from public incentives, environmental taxation, and conditioned access to distribution channels.
The contribution is priced by the kilo
Pending a full extended producer responsibility regime, the bill introduces an anticipatory contribution. It would be paid by whoever places textile products of class D or E on the Italian market: 30 cents per kilogram for class D, and 50 cents per kilogram for class E.
The unit is the detail that matters to anyone running a catalogue. A contribution paid by weight turns the weight of a garment into a cost line, and garment weight is a field almost no brand keeps accurately today.
What can honestly be said is arithmetic on a published rate. What cannot be said is which class a product would fall into, because the class cannot be computed.
No method, and what follows from it
The text lists five parameters and stops there. It sets no weights, no thresholds, no reference values, and it does not specify which data would be needed. Without those, no class is computable, by us or by anyone else.
That gap has a practical consequence. Any letter from A to E published today would be a private scale carrying the name of the State. From 27 September 2026 a sustainability mark that is neither certified nor established by a public authority is an unfair commercial practice in every case, so publishing one exposes you to a challenge under a rule that is already in force.
The honest position is therefore a narrow one. The bill exists and can be read. The passport is one of four requirements and not a shortcut to a class. The contribution rates are published and can be multiplied by the weight of a garment. Beyond that, there is nothing yet to tell a brand.
The advertising ban runs on its own
One article of the bill prohibits advertising for rapid-renewal fashion, and for ultra fast fashion in particular. The ban would cover every channel, including influencers and content creators, and it would also prohibit promotional use of the word "free".
This article is written as independent of the class, so it would apply whatever score a product carried. The date it names, 1 January 2026, has however already passed, and the parliamentary process will have to set a new one.
What is worth doing while the text is still in committee.
Keep the weight of every garment
It is the field the contribution would be computed on, and it is the same one the French environmental cost needs. One field, two rules: it is the first to put right.
The four requirements are built together
Traceability, certifications, EPR compliance and the passport are required together, and none of the four can be improvised. Three of them, however, are built from the same work on the supply chain.
Do not communicate a class that does not exist
Until the method is set by a decree, no letter can be computed. Publishing one exposes you to a challenge under a rule on environmental claims that is already in force.