RegioGreenTex is a project promoting the collaboration in research and development for the textile industry. Abigail Turner finds out what the project has achieved as it enters its final year.
Through a combination of policy support, technological advancements and public engagement Europe aims to become an “inspiring example” for the world for textile recycling.
This is the ambition of EURATEX, a European organisation representing the European textile and clothing industry. Working together with European Union (EU) institutions and other European and international stakeholders, the organisation is focused on industrial policy, effective research, innovation and skills development, free and fair trade, and sustainable supply chains.
In its final year, Euratex project RegioGreenTex is playing a huge role in achieving textile recycling through the creation of an effective network of textiles actors within their own regions and beyond. In the framework of the European Green Deal, RegioGreenTex is a project promoting collaboration in research and development for the textile industry to establish a systematic circular economy business model across the EU.
The EU textile and clothing industry currently consists of 143,000 companies employing 1.3m people, according to Euratex. With over € 50bn of exports, the industry is a global player successfully commercialising high added value products on growing markets around the world.
RegioGreenTex is a project promoting the collaboration in research and development for the textile industry. Image - EURATEX
What is RegioGreenTex?
RegioGreenTex, a three-year programme, was initiated in 2023 to support and foster solutions at small to medium enterprise (SME) level in the EU textile sector.
The programme involves 43 partners from 11 European regions, with 26 SMEs leading innovative solutions to recycle textile waste. One of these SMEs is Ariadne Innovation, based in the Flemish region its core product Ellie.Connect provides companies with the tools, expertise and network for sustainable innovation in and with the textile sector.
Florence Lootens, operations and business development manager at Ariadne Innovation told WTiN: “90% of the textile industry are SMEs, and they are all very busy, so they don’t have time to spend on digital tools to discover what they need.”
Lootens explained that the biggest challenge has been finding ways to filter the valuable content they are building and how they can then bring the most efficient process to companies. The aim is to create standards to classify textile companies and activities in a uniform way, making them more visible and allowing them to connect with one another.
Euratex project RegioGreenTex is playing a huge role in achieving textile recycling through the creation of an effective network of textiles actors within their own regions and beyond. Image - EURATEX
Power of digital tools in textile recycling
Ellie.Connect works as B2B digital platform for the sustainable textiles and fashion ecosystem. It enables accessibility to any actor within or linked to the industry, who is committed to being more sustainable.
As such, Ariadne is developing a similar model as part of RegioGreenTex. Through the project Ariadne received investment opportunities to build upon the tool and is now investing in its optimisation and exploring different features such as building a training database.
“The idea is that if we can validate actors within this network then we can take everything we have gathered and build upon the existing platform,” Lootens said.
Jennifer Palumbo, project director, at Euratex added: “Digital tools are important to connect companies and industry needs. Florence and her team have been doing a really good job of teasing out, from a mix of companies from different countries and sectors, the different parts of the value chain. They have identified their needs, what their possibilities are, what they are willing and not willing to share. This is useful for these companies to have a space where they can trade their waste stream knowhow to find creative solutions.”
Both Lootens and Palumbo agreed that industry technology is important as it allows you to cross borders and regions.
Lootens said: “You need to have a broad view to build value chains, one country is not enough.”
Regional hubs
Lootens leads the biggest regional hub within RegioGreenTex. Known as the Lowlands the hub consists of Northern France, Flanders and Northwest Netherlands.
Palumbo told WTiN the purpose of these hubs is to help the textile industry become more circular, and this starts at regional level. The 11 regions are within eight EU countries, and each region is organised in a “cluster format”.
“We have one organisation, which is either a technical cluster or development centre, an organisation that has some technical capabilities or business support,” she explained. “Then we have two to four SMEs per region, each of which are running pilot projects in textile recycling.”
In Lowlands, Lootens explained how the three regions provide different parts of the “puzzle” when it comes to creating circular value chains. For example, in Belgium there is strong mechanical recycling, while the Netherlands excels in chemical recycling and France has much production.
“It is hard to complete a value chain in one region alone,” she said. “But if we connect the three, we can move towards closing the loops.”
In the Lowlands the region is mainly focusing on post-consumer garments and optimising local waste streams. Beyond recycling it is also exploring reuse and refurbishing, through the facilitation of collaboration.
Industry challenges
“A circular economy requires a lot of collaboration between a lot of different partners,” said Lootens. “It also requires a lot of investment across the value chain. But without a clear revenue or business model from the start there is much uncertainty.”
Additionally, she added when looking across the three regions there are differences in legislation that make things complex. The main challenges so forth come from building the “right” partnerships but also making sure there is long-term perspective as they will need to invest together to scale up solutions.
Palumbo added that there are issues with pricing and quality that needs to be overcome for textile recycling to scale up.
“It has been a challenging period in the textile industry,” she said. “In the last year and a half there have been a lot of challenges for companies, which has caused uncertainty and disruption… It’s not straightforward how to move forward in the recycling space.”
What is next for textile recycling in the EU?
RegioGreenTex is collating its results, one of which is Ariadne’s digital platform and the collaboration that has come out of building the tool. Palumbo said the platform will now benefit from additional work and functionalities.
She added as the project nears its end it has produced “clear results” and tools that actors are already using. But for now, RegioGreenTex plans to present feedback from different stakeholders to European policymakers and regional policymakers at its final event in November.
Palumbo explained: “This is what we are focusing on. The idea is to create sustainable results that will continue after this project. It’s about creating conditions for a new phase.”
She added that she is particularly impressed with the creation of a fully circular garment that the project has produced.
“We thought ‘wouldn’t it be cool if we could try out circularity and produce a garment that is completely circular’? So, it is made of 100% recycled material and designed to be completely recycled again. And we’ve done it.”
Palumbo said they took mechanically and chemically recycled cotton for technical partners to find a mix of fibres to create a yarn to be spun and knitted into a functional garment. The project explored two different knits – a simple jersey knit and one an interlock knit have been cut and fashioned into a shirt. The garment has also been dyed with fully recycled dyes from post-consumer clothing. All these different elements of manufacturing have come from different regions within RegioGreenTex.
Palumbo said she hopes conversations will continue from a European perspective with European policymakers.
“We are in touch with a couple of MEPs at the moment and we are going to expand that from now until November,” she said.
Euratex will host a photographic exhibition at the European parliament to demonstrate what RegioGreenTex has been working on.
“We want MEPs and policymakers to realise there is a big capacity in Europe to produce textiles sustainably, and there is a desire to innovate and do more,” she said. “There are some challenges they should be aware of, so to hopefully overcome them and help the industry become more competitive, which is the key word nowadays.”
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