Page 12 - TEXtalks. January-February 2023

12

Led by EURATEX, an initiative to

support SMEs in transforming

textile waste into value

Today, 43 partners of the RegioGreenTex project met in Brussels to kick-start a three-year project that should
change the way we manage textile recycling.

Regions for Green Textiles – known as RegioGreenTex –is a quadruple-helix partnership initiative aiming at
mapping and reducing the difficulties, which currently exist in the implementation of a circular economy
model within the textile ecosystem across the EU.

RegioGreenTex will support tangible solutions at the SME level, where textile waste becomes a value. The
project will contribute to maintaining and developing jobs in the EU textile sector, reshoring production in
Europe, and making the EU textile value chain more competitive and resilient. It will contribute to the EU
Green Deal objectives of reducing carbon footprint, energy, and water consumption.

Led by EURATEX, the project brings together 43 partners from 11 European regions, with 24 SMEs
pioneering innovative solutions to recycle textile waste. Together the SMEs cover various value chain
segments of circular textiles (sorting, recycling from material to fiber, removal of contaminants, processing of
recycled fibers to new textile materials) and provide concrete solutions to EU value chain bottlenecks but
also seize upon market opportunities. The project will also promote the development of 5 regional ReHubs
in some of the most important textile regions in the EU.

EU inaction on energy issue

eroded the competitiveness of

the EU textile value chain

After the European Council summit proposed incurring losses while most have closed.
measures to tackle the energy crisis, the European
textiles industry has expressed concerns about the While other economies like China, India, and the US
loss of competitiveness of Europe demanding the tackled the energy issue proactively the EU acted
earliest action to save the industry. passively and slowly in responding to the crisis. The
Biden administration for instance came up with the
The EU textile industry asked the EU council to look 369-billion-dollar scheme of the Inflation
at and resolve issues faced by textile players across Reduction Act.
the value chain. The major factor in the sharp
decline in the competitiveness of European textiles In the EU, SMEs have been badly impacted by the
is energy cost. The energy cost in Europe is 6 times current crisis. They lack the financial leverage to
higher than in the United States and China. Other absorb the impact of energy prices. EU must take
textile economies also have access to cheap steps to ensure their survival. The tolerable gas
energy. European textiles lose competitiveness on price is a maximum of 80 Euro/MWh and at the
this count alone. This is the reason that most of the same time, electricity prices should also be lowered
European textile companies still in operation are to sustainable levels.

January/February 2023