Beyond MRSL: ZDHC's Role in Harmonizing a Product RSL?
The ZDHC MRSL has been a groundbreaking milestone, harmonizing chemical input standards across the global textile and footwear supply chain. Given its widespread adoption and impact, does ZDHC foresee taking a similar leadership role in developing a unified ZDHC Restricted Substances List (RSL) for finished products? Alternatively, could ZDHC consider endorsing or aligning with an industry-wide RSL—drawing from existing frameworks such as OEKO-TEX® Standard 100, bluesign® RSL, AFIRM, or AAFA RSL—to support greater consistency and transparency in finished product compliance across brands and regions?
ZDHC's scope of work goes beyond the product to the production processes. The philosophy of ZDHC is to control chemicals at the input stage in the production to ensure clean outputs. This has led to the paradigm shift in the industry towards the ZDHC MRSL, which is applied to formulations used in production. ZDHC is now working on the Chemicals to Zero- Progressive (CtZ-P), for assessing potential risks for RSL compliance from an MRSL conformant formulation. For this evaluation, we refer to the AFIRM RSL for the limit values. The CtZ-P will 'raise the bar' for the chemical industry and will help textile and leather manufacturers make informed decisions for their input chemicals for RSL compliance. The industry has aligned in a substantial way with the AFIRM RSL, but the variety of articles and materials that Brands deal in as finished products sometimes necessitates deviations from a unified industry-wide RSL. This is thus not currently in the scope of activities for ZDHC.