Sustainability is a practical and a very much alive idea across Europe. There are since some years back, several collaborative innovation networks across Europe, facilitating the successful transition into sustainability and a circular economy. Here you can read more about some of the innovative projects.

EU is a major stakeholder in this innovation system, as well as business organisations. Textile companies in every segment (textile, fashion accessories and footwear) collaborate in different ways in Europe. One of the more important stakeholders in this network of collabs is the Textile ETP.
The European Technology Platform for the Future of Textiles and Clothing (Textile ETP) was created in 2004 to match research and innovation needs and priorities of the European industry. Its members come from companies, researchers, and other textile professionals.

“Networking, Learning and EU Funding”

Through its broad membership base, the Textile ETP represent the research and innovation interests of the entire manufacturing value chain from fibres to final textile-based products. Since 2013 the Textile ETP is an international non-profit association under Belgian law with its permanent premises based in Brussels.

ETP’s ongoing projects
Textile ETP is involved in European projects on several levels, both strategically and operationally. Here are the current projects:

• PESCO-UP. By 2025, textile waste collection will be mandatory in EU member states, and PESCO-UP aims to transform this societal challenge into a business opportunity. The ambition of PESCO-UP is to transform the textile recycling industry by creating new raw materials from mixed wastes. It reduces the industry dependency on virgin materials.
• RegioGreenTex. In the framework of the European Green Deal, RegioGreenTex is a project promoting the collaboration in research and development for the textile industry. The project aims at establishing a systematic circular economy business model across the EU.
• CISUTAC aims to increase circularity and sustainability in textiles and clothing in Europe – by piloting digital repair and dismantling and by novel recycling processes. It covers most parts of the textile sector by working on 2 material groups representing almost 90% of all textile fibre materials (polyester, and cotton/cellulosic fibres), and focusing on products from 3 types of products (fashion garments, sports and outdoor goods, and workwear).
• IRISS. The IRISS project wants to connect, synergise, and transform the Safe-and-Sustainable-by-design community in Europe and globally towards a lifecycle approach. It facilitates a holistic integration of safety, climate neutrality, circularity, and functionality already in an early stage of designing and manufacturing materials, products and processes. It focuses on the value chains for textiles, construction, electronics, energy, automotive and packaging. The project responds to meet the EU Green Deal, EU Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, and UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• CITE (Circular Economy Innovative Initiative in Textile for an Entrepreneurial Europe) aims to create a new dynamic and agile ecosystem in and between higher education institutions. This will boost textile circularity and circular economy in innovation and entrepreneurial courses. CITE will exploit existing regional and international structures, programmes, and initiatives to teach circularity to entrepreneurs-to-be. The goal is to bring key sustainable improvements into the entrepreneurial system.
• TRICK. The TRICK project will develop technologies and related services – to enable textile and fashion industry SMEs to manage transparency and traceability in their supply chains. This includes the development of a complete, reliable, SME-affordable, and standardised platform for data collection, secured by Blockchain. Thus, enabling enterprises to collect product-secured data, combined with a marketplace including the needed services and the data generated, open to third parties’ certified solutions and business models.

Sources and Links to the projects
This are the ongoing projects, you can read more about each project, when you click on the links below.
PESCO-UP
RegioGreenTex
CISUTAC
IRISS
CITE
TRICK

Read more about Textile waste management? Click here to find ACTE’s white paper on textile waste management.

Read more about what Textile ETP does
Textile ETP on LinkedIn