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TEXTILE ECOSYSTEM IN EUROPE

Operational Environment

European legislation and international standards create the framework for a circular textile economy, promoting product durability, reuse, repair, transparency, and producer responsibility. Measures such as the EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles, ecodesign requirements, Digital Product Passport (DPP), and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes help companies adopt circular practices in textile design, manufacturing, use phase, collecting and sorting as well as recycling, and support the transition towards a more sustainable textile system. This page contains main regulatory framework and standardization related to circular economy transition.

Operational Environment
Circular Economy Action Plan WFD WFD CEAP Update EU Strategy Revision of Textile Labelling Green Claims Waste Shipment Ecodesign for ESPR

WFD

May 2018

Separate collection of textile materials in the EU by January 1st 2025

WFD 2008 , Amendment 2018

CEAP Update

Ecodesign for ESPR

July 2024 Digital Product Passport (DPP) introduced Ban on destruction of unsold textiles (in 2026 for large companies first) Indicative timeline for adoption of Delegated Act Ecodesign criteria for textile products expected in 2027 link to textile products ESPR page

Category Barriers Enablers
Regulatory barriers
  • Long awaiting times for legislations like EPR, ESPR & DPP; obligations are not known and incentives are missing.
  • Waste Framework Directive and large waste collection pose a potential risk; too much waste is collected yet there are no clear waste transport rules; end-of-waste rules missing.
  • ETS and other pollution controlling regulation is slow; waiting causes inefficiency and reduces the impact.
  • Communication with partners and consumers is challenging due to lack of clear textile labelling and consistent measurement methods such as LCA.
  • Functional legislations like EPR and ESPR can increase demand of recycled materials; better utilization of collected textiles.
  • Incentives for improved sustainability.
  • End-of-waste rules needed to transform waste into resources.
  • Faster implementation of regulation to promote true sustainability.
Economic and financial barriers
  • Specific processes require large investments, e.g. scaling of chemical recycling industry, but it is unclear who should bear the financial risk; companies avoid risks due to fear of unprofitability.
  • Primary synthetic materials are cheap, recycling is expensive; the cost of sustainable or circular materials is prohibiting businesses from trying and adopting new materials and to make business profitable.
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Market, demand and consumer related barriers
  • Companies have little to no control of their products at End-of-Life stage and consumers are unaware and uneducated; there’s a methodology for education missing.
  • Overproduction and overconsumption are the norm, not business development, and consumers and businesses alike are driven by the price; consumers are not engaged to participate in circular consumption.
  • Clear labels to communicate with the consumer.
  • Public campaigns or other appropriate methodologies to engage and educate the consumer.
Operational, logistical and supply chain barriers
  • Unclear waste terminology makes material handling challenging or impossible; unclear when collected waste turns into raw material and who can handle it.
  • Critical operations for circular material value chains, e.g. textile recycling, missing from the country or regional accessibility otherwise too low; finding co-operation partners is challenging.
  • Lack of waste collection channels and lack of collection and sorting facilities; geographical distances for operations grow.
  • Cheap imports, overproduction and consumption, incineration is available.
  • Long supply chains in multiple countries make data transfer challenging and it is unclear what information is acquired from the earlier value chain steps and what is needed/available later.
  • In complex textile supply chains, logistics are global and not local; logistics are inefficient when everyone is managing their own or when too many operators are involved.
  • Harmonised end-of-waste rules.
  • Hubs for circularity and other support for circular initiatives that are based on collaboration.
  • EU projects and partnerships.
  • Ban on destroying unsold products.
  • Ban on exporting waste to promote utilization.
  • DPP and data collection.
  • Harmonised, easy to implement rules for logistics.
Technology barriers
  • Lack of sorted, high-quality streams due to small waste streams that are mostly blend compositions; identification, sorting and separation of mixed content is difficult.
  • Due to feedstock instability operations are running at low capacities, scaling up is slow and TRL growth is slow; bottlenecks in the supply chain with the operational incompatibilities; forerunner’s phenomena.
  • No established recycling industry, recyclers missing from value chains; expanding recycling capacity is not rational before sorted feedstock is available.
  • Key operations missing: inefficient sorting for worn-out garments, lack of technologies to separate materials, lack of automated sorting; automation difficult due to hard parts and other contaminants.
  • Classification of waste.
  • Pooling of waste streams to promote reliability.
  • Recycled content quotas and certification for recycled contents.
  • Economic feasibility comes with large capacity, support for investments.
  • Sufficient material flows for economic scale.
Material, product and design barriers
  • Difficult products, e.g. FR garments, layered textiles, and material incompatibilities face the technical limitations of recycling; extra process steps for purification of contaminants are needed; chemical safety to be considered.
  • Collected waste often contains moldy, dirty, wet, almost hazardous textiles and other contaminants; may be a barrier for recycling, too low a value for reuse and remanufacturing.
  • Textile waste contains undesirable materials and products are not designed to be recycled; linear way of implementing circularity; businesses not looking down the line.
  • Property requirements may set limits to recycled content.
  • Material compatibility improvement and risk minimization.
  • Producers to be educated which technical aspects are a barrier to circularity.
Knowledge and information barriers
  • Textile products are mainly based on manual labour and require a certain set of skills; onboarding is necessary for circular processes, lack of skills in the companies.
  • Data transfer is often manual, data can be outdated or wrong due to human error; DPP is not a solution yet; lack of information exchange.
  • Lack of interaction between research and industry, as well as similar research projects; slow implementation to business, slow transactions.
  • Skilled supply chain needed; training.

Key standardization

Textile related standardization organizations

  • ISO TC 323 focuses on developing standards for circular economy, aiming to create a more sustainable future by promoting resource efficiency and reducing waste.
  • CEN TC 473 is responsible for creating European standards in the circular economy, collaborating with ISO to ensure that these standards are globally recognized.
  • CEN/TC 248/WG 39 Circular Economy for Textile Products and the Textile Chain including standards development related to circular design, durability, textile circularity, recycled and non-virgin materials, and textile waste management.

Textile circularity related standardization including status June 2026

Standard Description Status
ISO 5157:2023 Textiles – Environmental aspects – Vocabulary Published
WI 00248761 – prCEN/TS 18272-1 Textiles – Circular economy for textile products – General principles and guidance Under preparation
WI 00248762 Textiles – Circular economy for textile products – Categorisation of and requirements on non-virgin input materials Under preparation
WI 00248763 Textiles – Circular economy for textile products – Design for circularity Under preparation
WI 00248804 Textiles – Circular economy for textile products – Collecting, handling, sorting and storing specifications for used textile products and textile waste Under preparation
WI 00248776 Textiles – Circular economy for textile products – Minimum requirements for clothing Under preparation
WI 00248786 – FprCEN/TS 18271-2 Textiles – Circular economy for textile products – Minimum requirements for workwear Under preparation
WI 00248785 – FprCEN/TS 18271-3 Textiles – Circular economy for textile products – Minimum requirements for bed, bath, kitchen and table textiles Under preparation

DPP related standardization including status June 2026

Read more from CENELEC – CEN/CLC/JTC 24

Standard Description Status
EN 18216:2026 Digital product passport – Data exchange protocols Published
EN 18219:2026 Digital product passport – Unique Identifiers Published
EN 18220:2026 Digital product passport – Data carriers Published
EN 18221:2026 Digital product passport – Data storage, archiving and data persistence Published
EN 18222:2026 Digital product passport – Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for the product passport lifecycle management and searchability Published
EN 18223:2026 Digital product passport – System interoperability Published
EN 18239:2026 Digital product passport – Access rights management, information system security, and business confidentiality Under approval
EN 18246:2026 Digital product passport – Data authentication, reliability and integrity Under approval