Making textiles circular: What is needed?

fter the opening speech of Mariska Zandvliet, President of EuRIC Textiles, Maria Rincon Live, Policy Officer at the European Commission, DG Environment, Circular Economy and Green Growth, Sustainable Production, Products and Consumption highlighted some major takeaways to make textiles more circular. She mentioned that strong focus needs to be placed on eco-design, investments as well as a collaboration throughout the textile value chain and also the need to provide alternatives to tackle the current linear textile model. Delara BURKHARDT, Member of the European Parliament joined the keynote session to stress the necessity for a holistic circular economy approach and the fact that textiles are “our second skin” and need particular attention.

Moving to the panel discussion, Jonas Der-Hansen, Public Affairs Director at Global Fashion Agenda, called for a systematic change and a new and proper legal framework for textiles while Valeria Botta, Program Manager at ECOS, focused on the fact that it is essential to empower consumers to move to a circular economy for textiles and to prolonging the useful life of textile products.

Emmanuel Katrakis, Secretary General, wrapped up the debate by highlighting EuRIC’s vision of an ambitious EU Textiles Strategy which should include proper EPR schemes, recycled content targets as well as a close collaboration across the textiles value chain.
You couldn’t join? Don’t worry, the recording of the webinar will be published in the framework of eREC on 7th May from 09:15 to 11:00 AM CEST. The video will be also uploaded to eREC’s YouTube channel in the coming days.