By 2028, companies placing clothing, textile products and footwear on the Norwegian market will need to comply with a new regulatory framework governing how used and discarded textiles are collected, sorted, and financed. For producers, importers and retailers, this is about far more than waste management. It is about understanding what they will be required to pay and under which conditions they will operate within a system that is still under development.
Videre Tekstil is one of the PROs preparing to operate this scheme and will ultimately be responsible for invoicing the industry. For that reason, we have actively participated in the public consultation process, advocating for a regulatory framework that delivers predictable costs, fair competition, and conditions that businesses can realistically plan around. Below are the four questions we believe are most important to producers and retailers.
The simplest question to ask is also the hardest one to answer today: What will compliance with the regulation actually cost?
The answer hinges on a few words in the draft legislation that remain unclear. Producers are only required to cover the costs that are “necessary” to operate the scheme. However, neither what qualifies as necessary nor how those costs should be documented have been defined. Without a precise definition, businesses risk either paying for costs that should not be theirs to bear or becoming involved in disputes over what constitutes a reasonable expense.
We have therefore asked the Norwegian Environment Agency to establish clear rules governing which cost elements should be included, how they should be documented, and how costs should be allocated when multiple companies are involved.
We have also requested clarity on who owns the value of textiles once they have been collected. If textiles are sold for reuse or recycled into new materials, we believe that value should be reflected in the cost calculation rather than disappearing somewhere along the value chain while producers are left to cover the full bill. For businesses to trust invoices issued by producer responsibility organisations, costs and revenues must be considered together, reported consistently by all actors, and be comparable across organisations.
When clothing is sold directly to consumers through stores or online channels, it is clear that the regulation applies. However, many of our customers are asking a different question: What about workwear, uniforms, and other professional textiles sold business-to-business? These products have different characteristics and life cycles than an ordinary sweater sold in a retail store. They may contain chemicals, specialised materials, or be subject to strict safety and hygiene requirements. Many are already managed through well-functioning return, repair or disposal systems.
In our view, the current wording of the regulation may provide grounds for excluding certain categories of professional B2B textiles from its scope. However, rather than leaving each company to interpret the rules on its own, we have asked the Norwegian Environment Agency to provide a clear and explicit clarification.
For suppliers of workwear textiles, the answer to this question could determine whether they must register with a new producer responsibility scheme and pay corresponding fees, or continue operating under existing arrangements.
A Norwegian producer can do everything correctly: join an approved producer responsibility organisation, pay the required fees, and comply fully with the regulation, yet still lose market share to an overseas online retailer selling the same volume of products without contributing to the system.
This is the reality for much of today's cross-border distance selling from platforms operating outside Norway, and it is likely one of the issues that concerns the industry most.
We have asked the Norwegian Environment Agency to clarify precisely which obligations apply to providers of online platforms and to prioritise enforcement and compliance monitoring from day one.
Our goal is a regulatory framework that not only places obligations on Norwegian and established market actors, but also ensures that everyone selling textiles to Norwegian consumers competes on equal terms. If producer responsibility is to be financed fairly, compliant businesses cannot be expected to subsidise those that choose not to comply.
If producers are to receive good value, the market for producer responsibility services must function as a efficient market.
We believe there may eventually be several approved producer responsibility organisations to choose from, and in our view three elements are essential.
First, businesses must be able to switch organisations without losing historical reporting data. To achieve this, we have proposed a shared, government-managed digital portal, similar to Norway's reporting system for electronic waste, ensuring that company data is not locked into a single provider.
Second, no organisation should be permitted to use exclusive agreements with municipalities to prevent competitors from operating in a particular geographic area. This is precisely how competition disappears and prices rise.
Third, procurement of waste management services should prioritise quality, traceability, and environmental performance, not simply the lowest short-term cost.
At the same time, transparency must be balanced sensibly. Detailed information on producer fees should be reported to the authorities to enable oversight and compliance monitoring, but not necessarily published in a manner that allows competitors to replicate one another's pricing or commercial strategies.
Together, these measures would create a market that offers customers genuine choice while ensuring that prices are driven by competition, not by who happened to enter the market first.
Videre Tekstil is NORSIRK's newly established producer responsibility organisation for textiles. We are drawing on the experience NORSIRK has built over the past 25 years managing producer responsibility schemes for electronic waste, batteries, and packaging to help shape a textile EPR system that works in practice, both for the environment and for the businesses funding it.
We will continue to follow the regulatory process closely and are happy to discuss what these developments may mean for individual companies.
Source: Videre Tekstil's consultation response to the Norwegian Environment Agency (21 August 2026). All consultation responses are publicly available through the Norwegian Environment Agency.
