The updated EU Industrial Strategy highlights the need to accelerate the green and digital transitions of EU industry and its ecosystems. To that end, it proposes cooperation between industry, public authorities, social partners and other stakeholders.
Together with the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles, we invited stakeholders to join us in the co-creation of a transition pathway for the textiles ecosystem. Through this inclusive process, we identified what the digital and green transitions and increasing resilience mean for the textiles ecosystem, and what specific actions and commitments need to accompany the transition.
The sections below will guide you through the different steps of the co-creation process of the Textiles Ecosystem Transition Pathway. We will regularly update the information.
We invite all EU textiles ecosystem stakeholders to submit their commitments to support the pathway actions. We will publish the commitments, recognising our stakeholders' contribution to and leadership in the transition of the ecosystem.
To initiate the co-creation process, the European Commission prepared a staff working document outlining possible scenarios for a transition pathway towards a more resilient, sustainable and digital textiles ecosystem.
This document invites stakeholders to reflect and contribute to the scenarios by 2030 and lists key enablers for the transition of the textiles ecosystem. It invites stakeholders to work together and propose specific actions, commitments and investments.
To gather the inputs from textiles ecosystem actors, the European Commission launched an online consultation, which ended on 15 June 2022. In total, it received 103 responses. These were essential in identifying which key areas and topics the future Textiles Ecosystem Transition Pathway should focus on.
The next step of the co-creation process involved a series of workshops, organised in September 2022. They focused on sustainability, digitalisation, resilience and the social dimension of the textiles ecosystem. A concluding workshop held in October 2022 attracted 140 participants representing industry federations, companies, academia, NGOs, regional/national public administrations, trade unions, etc.
Conclusions from the final workshop:
The final stakeholder consultation report is also available.
The Textiles Ecosystem Transition Pathway was published on 6 June 2023. The policy report includes some 50 specific actions to support the twin transitions and the long-term resilience and competitiveness of the textiles ecosystem. The actions are divided into eight building blocks, each representing 1 key aspect of the transition.
See the Textiles Ecosystem Transition Pathway policy report.
A key objective of the co-implementation process is to collect commitments from stakeholders. In June 2023, the European Commission published a call for commitments for stakeholders in the textiles ecosystem.
The purpose of the call is to collect commitments on the concrete actions that stakeholders will take in order to bring forward actions identified in the transition pathway.
The call for commitments will remain open during the implementation phase of the Textiles Ecosystem Transition Pathway. On 1 March 2024, the first set of pledges and commitments from stakeholders was published.
We will update this section as developments occur.