In the third edition of the EU Textile Ecosystem Best Practices Report, the European Commission compiled 10 best practice cases covering Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Romania, among others. Participants include large industrial enterprises and non-profit organizations, focusing on transformation pathway topics such as sustainable competitiveness, R&D and innovation, infrastructure, skills, governance, and investment.

Key Points

  • This is the third edition of the report, featuring 10 best practices in total, covering Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, and other countries.
  • Italy's Pulvera converts textile production waste into fiber-based composite materials for furniture and automotive applications.
  • Belgium's Sioen Industries partnered with Resortec in 2024 to produce workwear using heat-dissolvable sewing threads, facilitating disassembly at end-of-life.

In terms of specific cases, Italian company Pulvera processes textile production waste into fiber-based composite materials for furniture and automotive applications; the report's authors say the company demonstrates how industrial symbiosis can turn textile waste into new business opportunities. The Netherlands' United Repair Center combines scalable B2B garment repair with an inclusive employment model, providing skills development opportunities for people facing barriers to entering the labor market. The report considers this as demonstrating that environmental and social goals can be embedded in the same circular business model.

On emissions reduction collaboration, the European Outdoor Group's carbon reduction project brings European brands together around shared suppliers, providing factories with technical support to measure emissions, develop reduction plans, and implement decarbonization measures. The report says this demonstrates the potential of pre-competitive collaboration in reducing emissions across the global textile supply chain. Dutch sustainable furniture manufacturer Planq partnered with Danish company Kvadrat Really, which converts textile waste into tabletop materials. Together they use discarded textiles for durable surfaces, panels, and furniture components. The report notes this illustrates the potential for cross-industry collaboration to reduce dependence on virgin materials and create value from waste streams.

On the circular consumption side, Romania's Humana People to People and Viitor Plus drive consumer engagement through education, awareness campaigns, and practical tools, encouraging reuse, repair, and responsible consumption, helping consumers find ways to extend the circulation cycle of textiles. On manufacturing transformation, Bulgarian textile manufacturer E. Miroglio invested in modern technology, certified materials, traceability systems, resource efficiency, life cycle assessment, and environmental monitoring to reshape its processes; Italian leather companies Sicit and Ilsa collaborated to recover collagen-rich residues from tanning processes, converting them into bio-based products such as fertilizers and biostimulants, creating value from materials originally treated as waste.

Digitalization and supply chain resilience are also key focuses of the report. Initiatives by Germany's DITF Denkendorf, Danish fashion tech startup Rodinia Generation, and German fashion company and micro-factory OMIMAI connect digital design directly to production, driving a shift toward a "design-sell-manufacture" model to address overproduction and long supply chain issues. Belgian technical textiles company Sioen Industries demonstrates the role of maintaining primary production bases in Europe for strengthening supply chain resilience. This vertically integrated company serves defense and security, public safety, maritime, energy, and infrastructure sectors, while advancing circularity and product traceability initiatives; in 2024, Sioen partnered with textile eco-design and end-of-life waste management company Resortec to produce workwear using heat-dissolvable sewing threads, making garments easy to disassemble at end-of-life.

The report concludes that these cases collectively show that the transformation of the textile ecosystem is moving from vision to implementation, demonstrating practical pathways to reduce environmental impact, create value from waste, develop viable circular business models, leverage digitalization to restructure production, and enhance the resilience of the European textile ecosystem. The report states that the purpose of sharing these practices is to help other companies understand how to implement similar initiatives, driving Europe's transition to a more circular textile economy, and hopes this serves as a reference and inspiration for participants across the textile value chain, supporting knowledge sharing and the replication and scaling of successful solutions.

For the used clothing and textile recycling industry, the signal from this report is that the policy side is listing "waste value creation," "design for disassembly," and "digital on-demand production" as replicable transformation templates. Companies engaged in sorting, recycled fibers, garment repair, and end-of-life disassembly may find entry points for connecting with European brands and research institutions.

Source: European Commission Outlines Textile Best Practices in New Report · Originally published on 2026-10-07