Export readiness · 08 of 10
5 min read
Selling into France: coût environnemental, and when it stops being optional
France has its own environmental figure for clothing, running ahead of the European one. If you sell there, or your buyer does, two rules change what silence costs you.
What it is, and what it is called
The official instrument is the coût environnemental, set by Décret n° 2025-957 of 6 September 2025, calculated with the state's own tool and declared on a public portal. You will hear it called an eco-score in conversation. That is not its name, it is not a protected term, and using the official one keeps you out of arguments you do not need to have.
Voluntary has a condition attached
It has been voluntary since 1 October 2025. Voluntary is only true of a brand that makes no environmental claim. Make the claim, and the declaration follows it. That is the part most brands miss, because they read the word voluntary and stop reading. If your marketing says anything at all about the environment to a French audience, you are in the second category.
From 1 October 2026, someone else can publish yours
From that date a third party, a retailer, a comparison app, a journalist, or a competitor, may calculate and publish a figure for a product whose brand has not declared one, using the official method. Without your data they use conservative defaults, and conservative defaults produce a worse result than your real one. Silence does not keep the topic closed. It hands the topic to somebody else.
And if you already show a number
Showing any other aggregate environmental figure to a French-facing audience can oblige you to show the coût environnemental beside it. This is the rule that touches us directly, because we produce impact figures. If your buyer is French and you plan to publish an impact figure, that is a conversation to have with them before print, not after.
What the calculation needs from you
Product category, finished mass, the nature and percentage of raw materials, and the geographical origin of weaving or knitting, of finishing, and of assembly. Optional fields default conservatively, which raises the figure. Three of those are the same three facts every other question in this series asks for. Collect them once and they serve every rung.
The essentials
- Voluntary since 1 October 2025, but only for a brand making no environmental claim.
- From 1 October 2026 a third party may publish a figure for you, using conservative defaults.
- Showing another aggregate figure to a French audience can trigger a co-display duty.
Primary sources
- Décret n° 2025-957 of 6 September 2025, coût environnemental. Checked 17 August 2026
- Loi n° 2020-105 (anti-waste law). Checked 17 August 2026
Criteria here are drawn from the ESPR text and the JRC preparatory study. Sources last checked 17 August 2026, and re-checked at every JRC milestone. Binding requirements for textiles begin only after the textile act is adopted and its lead time has run.
Where we stand
Mula is not affiliated with the European Commission, the JRC, or any certification body. What we do is readiness: getting your own evidence into order. We are not an economic operator, we do not register products in any system, and we never state that a product meets a rule. That judgement belongs to the party placing the product on the market and to the authorities.
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