The European Commission has started consultation process for the revision of its Green Public Procurement (GPP) criteria for textiles. The main purpose of the new process is to evaluate current GPP criteria and determine whether it is still relevant and what needs to be revised, restructured or removed based on the EU Ecolabel textile criteria from June 2014. Ecolabel is a voluntary performance certificate awarded to products and services assessed from creation to use and disposal, and determined to be eco-friendly.

Following this, the EC has turned its attention to updating its GPP criteria for textiles, which was last published in early 2012. The revision of the criteria addresses key environmental impacts. The two main focus areas for environmental improvement were origin of the textile fiber and chemicals used in textile production.

The EC feels the need to focus on specific products including work wear, emergency services, and healthcare along with the need to identify specific GPP related products and end-uses such as for work wear cleaning services or decoration.

As for chemical management, the EC elaborates that this would mean the implementation of a chemical restricted substance list, including communication of the list to dyeing, printing and finishing sites, monitoring of the compliance of production sites and monitoring of the compliance of final products, including laboratory testing.