The study underscores the urgent need for a stronger regulatory framework, including clearer export and import definitions, minimum quality standards, improved traceability systems, and extended producer responsibility schemes. It also identifies gaps in information requirements, recycling targets, infrastructure, financing mechanisms, and engagement with economic partners. By putting forward coordinated policy recommendations for both exporting and importing countries, the report aims to improve the economic, social, and environmental outcomes of used clothing trade, while supporting the implementation of the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles and national circular economy strategies, particularly by addressing second-hand clothing and textile waste flows and their impacts in importing countries. 

The study was produced with financial support from the EU Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA), under the UNECE project on Enhancing Transparency and Traceability of Sustainable Value Chains in the Garment and Footwear Sector, and with technical support from ECLAC.

This study is complemented by a subsequent publication Making Trade Work for Circularity: Improving Circularity in Second-Hand Clothing Through Trade Regulation (2026), which translates its findings into practical, WTO-consistent policy options to enhance sustainability and circularity in global second-hand clothing trade.