AEI TÈXTILS participates in a roundtable to discuss the upcoming European policies towards circular economy and sustainability in the textile sector

Submitted by Ariadna Detrell on 26 February 2020

AEI TÈXTILS, the Catalan Technical Textiles’ Cluster, participated in the roundtable Greening the Textile sector organized by FleishmanHillard on February 25th in Brussels.

The lunch roundtable “Greening the textile sector: challenges in a circular economy” had featured speakers from the European Commission, EURATEX, European Environmental Bureau and The Policy Hub.

Each of the speakers presented the importance of the textile industry in the new policies, particularly in the upcoming Industrial Policy and Circular Economy polices from the European Commission due for launch in March 2020. In addition, due to the pressing aspects textile faces in circular economy, there will be a dedicated EU policy for textiles to be presented during 2021.

The EU GREEN DEAL ambition from the president Ursula von der Leyen will prioritize the textile sector due to its high impact as resource intensive industry. This will be highlighted in the upcoming new policies and support mechanisms.

Some of the discussion points during the roundtable included the fact that the textile industry is broad and diverse. The industry includes many sectors beyond fashion, including technical textiles and home textiles, which account for about 40% of textile production in Europe according to EURATEX. The European Commission expects to cover the sector in a comprehensive way including them into the strategy and action plan in the coming years.

AEI Tèxtils has accumulated comprehensive experience in the past years supporting circular economy and sustainability of the sector with its members leading two European projects (MIDWOR-LIFE and LIFE-FLAREX) and several regional projects (PACTEX, ECODISTEX, SUSTEX, CIRCULARTECH) and is currently involved in a strategy review as part of the CLAMTEX project activities, Cluster management towards excellence in Advanced Manufacturing and Textile Industry, which aims to strengthen cluster management excellence to boost the specialized technical textile innovation eco-system by promoting the cross-sectoral and cross-regional collaboration to facilitate the uptake of digitalization within and beyond the partnership.

The participation of AEI Tèxtils cluster at the roundtable allows to understand the policy framework and their trends to better refine its strategy to support its members’ needs for innovation. Clusters act as a hub and as a collaborative environment to facilitate partnership between enterprises, research institutes, policy makers and other institutions that promote innovation and provide SMEs access to new knowledge competencies, resources and markets.

AEI TÈXTILS and its members’ testimonial: https://youtu.be/-C73fwr8GdE

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