ZDHC publishes Chemical Watchlist
ZDHC has led the development of Chemical Watchlist, which identifies substances that might pose a risk to human health, the environment or circularity outcomes and is designed to support decision-making across the textile, leather, apparel and footwear value chain.
It said it will enable organisations to align internal teams and external partners, reduce interpretation risk and support more consistent sustainability and reporting practices.
Following compilation of a master list of almost 7,000 substances, ZDHC screened for industry relevance, including overlap analysis with standards such as bluesign, GOTS and OEKO-TEX. Another 224 substances were identified by analysing Safety Data Sheets from the ZDHC Gateway formulation data. The resulting substance set was then reviewed and validated by technical experts.
The result is ZDHC Chemical Watchlist Version 1.0, a provisional list of almost 1,700 substances relevant to the industry, aligned with the ESPR substance-of-concern definition, with additional substances remaining under review.
Pushkar Shejwalkar, ZDHC technical manager, said: “In the European Union, frameworks such as the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS) are raising expectations around how companies disclose impacts, risks and opportunities related to pollution and hazardous substances. Under ESRS E2 (Pollution), companies are expected to report on the use of substances of concern (SoC) and substances of very high concern (SVHCs) within their operations and value chains. In parallel, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) introduces new product transparency requirements, notably through the Digital Product Passport (DPP), which will require information on chemical composition and substances of concern.
“Despite this regulatory momentum, the textile, leather, apparel and footwear industry has lacked an industry-specific reference list. As a result, companies have been left to interpret definitions independently, often leading to inconsistent approaches, duplicated effort and uncertainty across complex global value chains.”
However, he stressed the ZDHC Chemical Watchlist is not the ZDHC Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL). It does not introduce new restrictions, does not mandate testing and does not create compliance obligations. It is an informational and reporting-focused instrument.
Image: Ryan Zazueta on Unsplash
