If you sell clothing in France, 1 October 2026 changed who controls your Eco Score. From that date, third parties can calculate and publish an eco score textile for your products, even if you have not calculated one yourself.
Key takeaways
Anyone can score you now: since 1 October 2026 a retailer, NGO or comparison site can calculate and publish a coût environnemental for your clothing, on default data if yours is missing.
Mandatory with other claims: display stays voluntary unless the product carries another environmental score or claim. Then the coût environnemental sits next to the price, at least as large.
One number, lower is better: 16 PEF indicators plus microfibre shedding and end-of-life export, adjusted by a durability coefficient from 0.67 to 1.45.
Data decides the score: category, mass, fibre composition and where the fabric was made, dyed and assembled. Defaults in place of real data can more than double the result.
France's textile Eco Score, step by step
The arrêté publishes the methodology and the 11 clothing categories
Voluntary display starts and the declaration portal opens
Third parties can publish your score; display is mandatory if you make another environmental claim
Scope expected to widen to shoes, bags and leather goods
What is the French Eco Score?
France's affichage environnemental textile is the country's environmental labelling scheme for clothing. The score itself is called the coût environnemental and is expressed as a single number in points d'impact.
The score measures the environmental impact of a garment across its life cycle. A higher score means a higher environmental impact, while a lower score indicates a lower calculated impact.
Where the coût environnemental is displayed, it must appear alongside the product price. It is not meant to sit hidden in a product description or on a separate sustainability page.
Terms to know · Coût environnemental
The single-figure environmental cost of a garment, in points d'impact, calculated with the official French methodology. Not simply a carbon footprint: it combines 16 environmental impacts and adds factors specific to clothing.
What applies since 1 October 2026?
The affichage environnemental textile has been available voluntarily since 1 October 2025, and it stays voluntary unless you make another environmental claim. That was when the first version of the official methodology came into force and the declaration portal opened.
From 1 October 2026, a new rule applies: third parties can calculate and publish an eco score textile for your products. A retailer, NGO, comparison website or another organisation can calculate a coût environnemental without first obtaining your approval.
Where your own product data is not available, the calculation can use the conservative default assumptions provided by the methodology. These defaults can result in a higher score than one calculated using accurate product and supply-chain information.
A second, separate change
Displaying the coût environnemental becomes mandatory if you already display another environmental score or claim on the product. This could include a carbon footprint, sustainability rating or another environmental indicator. If you make no environmental claims at all, displaying the coût environnemental is not yet a general requirement for every clothing product.
The practical takeaway is simple: since October 2026, brands have less control over whether an Eco Score exists for their products, but they can still control the quality of the data behind their own calculation.
Does the France Eco Score apply to you?
The France eco score applies to clothing placed on the French market. It does not depend on where your company is registered. If you produce, import or distribute clothing for sale in France, the French market is what matters.
The current affichage environnemental textile covers 11 clothing categories:
- T-shirts and polos
- Shirts
- Jeans
- Trousers and shorts
- Skirts and dresses
- Sweaters
- Coats and jackets
- Swimwear
- Socks
- Knit underwear
- Woven underwear
The current scope does not include shoes, bags or other leather goods and accessories. Second-hand products and products containing more than 20% non-textile material by mass are also outside the current scope.
Some individual products are temporarily excluded while the underlying reference data is completed. These include certain bras, padded down jackets and pure silk shirts. The scope may therefore develop as the methodology and supporting data are updated.
How is the eco score textile calculated?
The coût environnemental is based on a life cycle assessment covering 16 Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) indicators. The assessment looks at the environmental impact of a product throughout its life cycle, from raw materials and manufacturing through to use and end of life.
The textile methodology then adds two clothing-specific components.
The calculation includes a microfibre-shedding component to account for fibres released from clothing during use and washing. This addresses an impact that the standard PEF calculation does not fully capture.
An additional export component accounts for clothing that is likely to be exported outside Europe at the end of its life, where waste-management infrastructure may be different.
The durability coefficient
The resulting score is then adjusted using a durability coefficient ranging from 0.67 to 1.45. This coefficient considers two areas:
- The breadth of a brand's product range within a category
- The availability and affordability of repair compared with the product's retail price
This is important because the Eco Score is not determined solely by the physical characteristics of the garment. Two similar garments can receive different scores because of differences in factors such as the size of the brand's range and its repair offering.
A worked example
Published Ecobalyse outputs give an indication of how much the score can vary depending on the product and its data.
An organic cotton T-shirt made in Portugal may produce a score somewhere in the 350 to 500 point range, while a conventional cotton T-shirt made in India could be closer to 800 to 1,100 points. The effect of using actual product information rather than default assumptions can also be substantial. In one published example, a T-shirt's score changed from approximately 1,558 points using default assumptions to around 650 points once real product data was provided.
These figures are illustrative rather than standard scores. The actual eco score for a textile product needs to be calculated using its own product and supply-chain data.
What data do you need?
The quality of the coût environnemental depends heavily on the information available for each product. At a minimum, the calculation requires:
The product needs to be assigned to one of the recognised clothing categories covered by the methodology.
You need the finished product's mass.
The calculation requires the fibre composition of the garment, including materials representing at least 2% of the product's total mass.
- Where the fabric is woven or knitted
- Where dyeing or finishing takes place
- Where the garment is assembled
Other information can also influence the final result, particularly the durability coefficient. This can include the product's reference price, the breadth of the product range, whether it is upcycled or remanufactured, and whether repair services are available.
Providing accurate data matters because missing information can be replaced by conservative default assumptions.
For brands, this means that the main challenge may not be the calculation itself. It is having reliable, structured product data available in the first place.
Where do you calculate the score in Ecobalyse?
Ecobalyse is the free official calculation tool developed by ADEME. For anyone searching for an eco score vêtement tool or asking how to calculate a France eco score, Ecobalyse is the key reference.
The tool uses the methodology and product information to calculate the environmental cost of the garment. This means brands do not need to build their own calculation model from scratch. The more important preparation is making sure the underlying product data is complete and accurate before running the calculation.
How do you declare and display the score?
Once a coût environnemental has been calculated, it is declared through the official Affichage environnemental portal, which sits alongside Ecobalyse. The declaration records information including:
- The calculated environmental cost
- The product reference
- The data and parameters used
- The product's market launch date
- The calculation date
- The methodology version used
Submitting your own declaration is important because it establishes the product information behind the score. If a third party later calculates the product's Eco Score, having your own declaration and supporting data can help ensure the calculation is based on your actual product information rather than conservative defaults.
Display requirements
Where the affichage environnemental textile is displayed, the official pictogram must be at least as large as the product price. This applies to both physical and online sales. For online products, the displayed coût environnemental must also link to the underlying information available through the official portal, allowing consumers to see the data behind the score.
T-shirt en coton biologique
Where does the Digital Product Passport fit?
A Digital Product Passport does not calculate the coût environnemental or submit the declaration for you. The Eco Score remains a separate process using the official methodology and Ecobalyse.
However, the data needed for the calculation is largely the same type of product information that a Digital Product Passport is designed to hold. A structured product passport can already contain information such as product category, fibre composition, mass, and the countries where weaving, dyeing and assembly take place.
This means that if your product data is already collected and structured for a passport, much of the work needed for the eco score textile is already done. Instead of collecting the same information again for every product, brands can use their existing product data as the starting point for the Eco Score calculation.
What should brands prepare now?
The October 2026 change makes product data more important, not less. If you sell clothing in France, it is worth checking whether you already have the core data needed for the affichage environnemental textile:
- Product category
- Product mass
- Fibre composition
- Weaving or knitting location
- Dyeing or finishing location
- Assembly location
It is also worth checking where this information currently sits. If composition is in the PLM, manufacturing locations are in supplier spreadsheets and product mass is maintained somewhere else, calculating a reliable France eco score can become a manual exercise. Bringing this information together in a structured product record makes it easier to calculate the coût environnemental, maintain the underlying data and reuse it for other product compliance requirements.
In short
The French textile Eco Score works in two stages. Brands have been able to display it voluntarily since 1 October 2025. Since 1 October 2026, third parties can publish scores for products on the French market, and brands that make other environmental claims must display it.
The score itself is the coût environnemental, calculated using 16 PEF indicators, textile-specific factors and a durability coefficient. The calculation depends on detailed product and manufacturing data, making data quality an important part of preparing for the scheme. For brands, the priority is therefore not just understanding the score. It is making sure the product data behind the score is complete, accurate and accessible when it is needed.
Tappr brings that data together in one product record and calculates the coût environnemental from it using the official methodology, with no full LCA needed. Bring a few product references to a demo to see what your own data does to the score.
This is general information, not legal advice. Requirements and guidance may be supplemented or updated as the methodology develops. Consult qualified legal counsel before relying on this information for a compliance decision.
French Eco Score questions, answered
Is the French Eco Score mandatory?
Who can publish an Eco Score for my products?
Which products does it cover?
Is a higher score better?
Do I need a full life cycle assessment?
Official sources
Built from these sources: