Bangladesh and the Netherlands jointly launched the "Circular Textiles Bangladesh: Advancing Traceability and Decarbonization" project in Dhaka on October 5, led by Dutch development organization Solidaridad together with the Dutch Embassy in Bangladesh, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), brands, technology providers and Bangladeshi industry associations. The project will first pilot supply chain traceability, circular production and decarbonization solutions at five factories, preparing for new regulations such as the EU Digital Product Passport (DPP).

Key points

  • The project is led by Solidaridad with the Dutch Embassy in Bangladesh and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), with Dutch retail brands Zeeman, Wibra and XD Connects and technology providers Aware, tex.tracer, OneTrueValue and Colubris participating, and Bangladeshi industry bodies BGMEA and BKMEA collaborating. It was launched on October 5 at the Regency Hotel in Dhaka.
  • The project will test implementation pathways for traceability, renewable energy, wastewater treatment, chemical management and decarbonization at five factories, and assess commercial viability and industry-wide scalability on that basis.
  • The EU Digital Product Passport (DPP), the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and forced labour regulations are seen as the main sources of compliance pressure for Bangladesh's textile and apparel industry in the next phase.

The project's partner lineup covers both ends of the value chain: Dutch retail brands Zeeman, Wibra and XD Connects represent buyer demand, technology providers Aware, tex.tracer, OneTrueValue and Colubris supply data and traceability tools, and the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA) connect with local manufacturers. The core theme of the launch event was how Bangladesh's textile and apparel industry should prepare ahead of a regulatory environment in which product-level information, traceability and verifiable data are increasingly becoming market access requirements.

Md. Ataur Rahman Khan, Secretary of Bangladesh's Ministry of Commerce, spoke as chief guest, saying traceability can turn regulatory pressure into market advantage. He stressed that verifiable information across the entire chain from fibre to garment helps strengthen global brand confidence, giving Bangladesh a new source of competitiveness beyond price, quality and delivery times. He called on manufacturers not to view digital traceability merely as an administrative burden, and reiterated the ministry's support for testing and scaling pilot solutions.

Janna van der Linden, Deputy Head of Mission at the Dutch Embassy in Bangladesh, noted that Dutch brands and Bangladeshi manufacturers are in the same supply chain, and that changes in European regulations affect both sides: Dutch brands need reliable information to meet new requirements, while Bangladeshi factories need systems capable of providing production, sustainability and traceability data. Citing the circular economy memorandum of understanding between Bangladesh and the Netherlands, she described the project as a pragmatic way to move policy cooperation into implementation, with lessons from the pilots also serving broader intergovernmental dialogue.

Nadia van de Weem, representing the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), explained that the project goes beyond discussing European regulations to directly testing solutions at factory level, linking traceability with renewable energy, wastewater treatment, chemical management and decarbonization to generate practical performance data that can be used to judge "what can be commercialized and what can later be scaled across the industry."

In his welcome remarks, Selim Reza Hasan, Solidaridad's Country Manager for Bangladesh, argued that European requirements are shifting from a focus on factory compliance audits toward greater emphasis on product-level information and accountability. The project aims to combine Dutch technology with Bangladeshi manufacturing experience to test supply chain traceability, formalization of textile waste trade, factory decarbonization and consistency in sustainability reporting. For manufacturers, passing audits may no longer be enough; the industry needs to show information about the materials, processing history and environmental and social performance behind products.

Annemiek Smits, Solidaridad's Manager for Cotton, Leather and Textile Enterprise Partnerships, linked the initiative to broader changes in European product and sustainability regulations, noting that the project aims to test circular practices, digital supply chain traceability and decarbonization, and to help the industry understand the specific requirements of the Digital Product Passport (DPP), the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and forced labour regulations. The DPP drew the most attention—for Bangladeshi manufacturers, the difficulty is not attaching a QR code to a garment, but collecting, connecting and verifying information across raw materials, processes, suppliers and finished products.

Mohammad Monower Hossain, Head of Sustainability and Chief Sustainability Officer at TEAM Group, analysed the shift from a corporate perspective: the key change is from "whether a factory is compliant" to "whether a product can prove its sustainability and sourcing claims." He listed four types of information manufacturers need to strengthen and make verifiable: product composition, factory environmental indicators, social evidence and chain-of-custody traceability. He cautioned that although European brands bear most of the direct legal responsibility under the regulations, they must rely on suppliers to provide the information needed to fulfil their obligations; he gave the example of a factory with more than 1,200 suppliers to illustrate the difficulty of collecting evidence in large international sourcing networks. His assessment was that most factories already hold large amounts of material, chemical, sourcing and production information, and the real challenge is organizing that data into product-level verified information usable when buyers and regulators request it.

The launch event also featured two panel discussions, on "Traceability and Transparency" and "Clean Production and Circularity." The former focused on how Bangladesh can improve supply chain visibility, data sharing and readiness for product-level requirements, recommending a national-level traceability backbone system to reduce duplication across different buyer systems and technology platforms in a centralized, interoperable way; participants stressed that factories should retain ownership of their own data, called for unified guidance in key export industries, and urged brands to share the cost of building digital systems rather than placing the entire burden on manufacturers. The latter discussed more robust environmental data and more viable circular textile production systems, focusing on establishing a national life cycle assessment (LCA) and emissions database, improving the availability of reliable environmental information, and reforming customs procedures that may hinder trade in recycled textile waste; the discussion also reflected industry interest in how Bangladesh can move beyond pre-consumer textile waste and participate more effectively in broader circular material flows.

A consistent message running through the remarks was that traceability cannot be achieved by factories alone. Brands need credible information from suppliers, manufacturers need affordable and workable systems, technology providers need to ensure platforms can interoperate, and policymakers must prevent regulatory and administrative barriers from causing unnecessary duplication. For Bangladesh, factories already generate vast amounts of production and sustainability data; what is changing is that this information must be linked to individual products and be verifiable across the entire supply chain. The significance of the project will depend not only on which technologies are introduced, but on whether the pilots can demonstrate a viable model in which brands, suppliers, technology providers and government share responsibility for data and systems.

Source: Circular Textiles Bangladesh launched to strengthen traceability and decarbonization · Originally published 2026-10-06