Discover the European Community of Practice for a Sustainable Textile Ecosystem

With 40+ EU-funded member projects focusing on textile sustainability, ECOSYSTEX, the European Community of Practice for a Sustainable Textile Ecosystem, has been formally launched in early 2023, with a mission to accelerate collaboration in the textile sustainability and circularity field.

As a joint initiative of the European Commission’s Research Executive Agency (REA), the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA) and the Circular-Biobased Europe Joint Undertaking, and facilitated by the Textile ETP, this new network of textile circularity projects aims to create a long-term community of practice, ensuring collaboration across project consortia and lasting beyond the individual projects’ durations.

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Join us in exploring the cutting-edge initiatives that define the future of biobased textile sustainability and circularity within the ECOSYSTEX community through our 'ECOSYSTEX Insight Series'. Gain invaluable insights into the work done in the community and its innovative project members shaping the industry's landscape.

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Why now?

In recent years a growing number of research and innovation projects have been funded under the EU’s Research Framework Programmes in the field of textile sustainability and circularity, as a result of the European Union's focus on the sustainable transition of the EU economy and society as part of the EU Green Deal.

In its 2022 EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, the European Commission presented a vision and related European policy objectives for a green and digital transition of the European textile ecosystem. The strategy focuses on key textile sustainability aspects, such as eco-design, waste and pollution prevention, safe and biobased materials, circular material flows, responsible supply chains and new business models, etc. The research and innovation work carried out by these EU-funded projects could be overlapping and duplicative or it can be complementary and cross-fertilising.

The ECOSYSTEX community will make sure the latter is the case.

The important feature of ECOSYSTEX is the collaboration between academic and applied researchers, technology developers, textile industry experts and other stakeholders from across Europe.

An arsenal of new knowledge and innovative technological solutions are resulting from collaborative research projects and programmes across Europe, but information about their results is fragmented which inhibits take-up and scale-up. It also means that policy makers and other stakeholders may miss out on latest data and insights that could make their legislative or implementation initiatives more relevant, specific and impactful.

ECOSYSTEX aims to become the central European knowledge hub and go-to resource for latest research work and technology state-of-the-art information on all matters related to textile sustainability and circularity.

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What is the focus of ECOSYSTEX?

Interproject collaboration

With ECOSYSTEX, we foster interproject collaboration by sharing best practices and exchanging/creating new knowledge to advance sustainable and circular business practices in the European textile ecosystem.
Engagement with policymakers

We engage with policymakers and public programme managers, to help them design effective policies and programmes and support their implementation to foster textile circularity and sustainability.
Dissemination

ECOSYSTEX ensures the interested public expert community can be informed about the latest developments and results of EU research and innovation projects addressing textile sustainability and circularity.

Research Gaps and Needs for the Green Transition of the European Textile Ecosystem

In July 2023, as a results of two months of collaboration between the researchers, industry experts and other stakeholders involved in the project members, the ECOSYSTEX Community is publishing their first Input Paper identifying the most pressing and impactful research gaps and needs to be filled to enable the green transition of the European textile ecosystem.

Read ECOSYSTEX Input Paper

ECOSYSTEX Member Projects

The initial idea for setting up this network came from the CISUTAC project, inspired by a similar initiative in the plastic industry: the Plastic Circularity Multiplier. ECOSYSTEX has now taken shape, and CISUTAC has been joined by 42 other projects. Currently, ECOSYSTEX has active members and supporting projects. Supporting projects have been completed, and although they remain integral to the ECOSYSTEX Community, they do not hold representation within the Steering Committee.

Interested in joining ECOSYSTEX?

Membership of ECOSYSTEX is open to running European-funded research & innovation projects focusing on textile sustainability and circularity, or concluded projects meeting the same criteria. For more information about the membership, contact us.