As the European Union goes all out to accelerate the green and digital transition of industry and its ecosystems, it has invited stakeholders to collaborate and join the co-creation of the transition pathway for the textiles ecosystem by proposing specific actions, commitments and investments.
- To initiate the co-creation process, the European Commission has prepared a staff working document outlining possible scenarios for the transition pathway towards a more resilient, sustainable and digital textiles ecosystem.
- The document invites the stakeholders to reflect and contribute to the scenarios by 2030 and lists key enablers for the transition.
- A key objective of the co-implementation process is to encourage, collect and support commitments from relevant stakeholders on the concrete actions they will take in order to bring forward actions identified in the transition pathway.
- The call for commitments will remain open during the implementation of the Textiles Ecosystem Transition Pathway. The commitments will be published in batches over time.
Kickstarting the process: The publication of this transition pathway policy report kick-starts the coimplementation process with a call for stakeholder commitments to underpin the actions of the transition pathway.
- The European Commission will facilitate the co-implementation, in cooperation with stakeholders, by taking stock of commitments and progress made.
- In order to ensure a continuous collaboration with stakeholders, the European Commission will establish a user friendly, multilingual Transition Pathway Stakeholder Support Platform.
- ‘Monitoring of European industrial ecosystems’ project, key performance indicators will be established and monitored for the textiles ecosystem. This is key to allow policymakers and industry to track progress over time and get feedback whether the ecosystem is moving in the right direction. For each indicator, a progress tracker should be employed to monitor the transition pathway.
Blueprint structure: The structure of the blueprint developed by the Industrial Forum Task Force 225 on transition pathways is based on a building block approach where each building block covers a key aspect of the twin transition and the desired move to greater resilience and competitiveness.
For each topic listed under the respective building block a list of specific actions is identified, together with their timeframe of implementation and identification of the most relevant players.
- Sustainable competitiveness: The EU textiles ecosystem faces challenges with respect to its future competitiveness that include increased international competition, rising energy costs, unsustainable use of primary raw materials, lack of sufficient recycling and skills gaps. Sustainability presents the industry with new challenges but also with opportunities.
- Regulation and public governance: The EU Textiles Strategy aims to create a coherent framework for the green transition of the ecosystem and present a vision for the transition, whereby by 2030, textile products placed on the EU market are long-lived and recyclable, to a great extent made of recycled fibres, free of hazardous substances and produced in respect of social rights and the environment.
- Social dimension: The textiles ecosystem is mostly a labour intensive one, so the social dimension is critical by definition. The twin transition will have a strong impact on employment (job numbers, job types and skills) and working conditions and will bring job changes. The twin transition could also play a role in promoting decent work and creating additional jobs in the EU, especially in relation to the circular economy.
- Research & Innovation, techniques, and technological solutions: Innovation is a key driver of the EU industry’s international competitiveness – innovative, sustainable, circular and high-quality products remain the most promising focus for the ecosystem. To maintain the global innovation lead of the ecosystem increased efforts are needed in research, technology development, innovation, sustainability, creativity and skills development.
- Infrastructure: To overcome the infrastructural barriers to the green transition, there is a need for strategic planning involving both public and private entities in terms of textile waste management infrastructure and logistics. Investments are needed in textile waste separate collection, sorting and subsequent processing for reuse and recycling for textile-to-textile recycling infrastructure. For the digital transition, it is essential to facilitate data sharing and the reuse of data across companies. In addition, to ensure resilience and competitiveness of the ecosystem access to reliable and/or alternative sources of energy is important.
- Skills: The European Commission has launched the EU Pact for Skills initiative, a central element of the European Skills Agenda. Under this EU initiative, the European Commission, together with EURATEX, CEC and COTANCE supported the establishment of a large-scale skills partnership for the textiles ecosystem.
- Investments & funding: Innovation funding instruments are primarily dedicated to high-tech and/or high growth companies and focused on research activities and early phases of the innovation cycle. The innovation needs of the textile ecosystem demands more incremental innovation and a focus on the last phases of the innovation cycles – most notably product/industrial development, demonstration activities, prototyping and testing activities, and scale-up and uptake of technological solutions. Capacity building is also needed to boost digitalisation and develop competencies to help companies reduce their environmental impact.
- Ecosystem’s readiness to support EU strategic autonomy and defence efforts: The competitiveness and resilience of the EU textiles ecosystem is key for the open strategic autonomy of the EU economy and society. Furthermore, to support defence efforts some textiles products are essential to produce
THE EU TEXTILES ECOSYSTEM: The textiles ecosystem includes transformation of natural and manmade fibres into yarns and fabrics, production of yarns, home textiles, medical textiles, industrial filters, technical textiles, carpets, and clothing.
- The ecosystem also includes production of footwear and leather.
- The textiles ecosystem is amongst the most globalised value chains that exist today.
- The ecosystem is mainly composed of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which represent 99.5% of the companies active in this ecosystem. Women represent more than 70% of all employees.
- Companies with less than 50 employees account for more than 90% of the workforce.
- The main EU producers of textile and clothing are concentrated in Germany, Spain, France, Italy and Portugal. Over 40% of EU apparel is produced in Italy.
- As regards footwear, two thirds of EU footwear production is concentrated in three countries: Spain, Italy and Portugal with Italy accounting for over 50% of EU production.
- The European footwear industry consists of a large number of small enterprises, employing on average 10-15 employees.
- The number of companies and employment in the footwear sector has been declining in the past decades due to manufacturing moving to economies with lower labour costs in South East Asia.
- Many European companies have focused on high-quality and high-added value segments and niche markets.
The Process: Following the publication in March 2022 of a Staff Working Document with scenarios for the Textiles Transition Pathway, the co-creation process was launched with a survey, which was concluded June 2022 with 103 replies submitted to the survey.
- Four workshops were held with stakeholders in September 2022 covering sustainability, digitalisation, resilience and the social dimension of the transition.
- A concluding workshop was organised in October 2022 with 140 participants.
The input from the stakeholder consultation was published in a report drafted by experts supporting the European Commission in the co-creation process. - Exchanges were also undertaken with the European Parliament, the Council, and social partners with valuable input and support which have been taken into account in this policy report.
- Stakeholder input collected during the co-creation process resulted in the identification of proposed actions for the transition pathway. Each area of the transition pathway includes specific actions together with a timeframe for implementation: short-term, medium-term, or long-term. Indicatively, short-term indicates activities that should start as soon as possible; medium-term indicates activities that should start in the medium-term (i.e. by 2030); while long-term indicates the long-term, i.e. activities that should be launched by 2040.
Footnote: The European Commission policy report states that the “action recommendations do not necessarily represent the position or endorsement of all stakeholder groups nor the position of individual Member States or the European Commission. This document is without prejudice to any future initiatives. The actions presented in this document describe ambitions and desired objectives for the transition.”
