Circular & Sustainable Textiles & Clothing

ongoing

CISUTAC will tackle current bottlenecks in the transition to circular textiles and clothing. For scale and significance, we focus on polyester, cotton & cellulosic fibres (together ca. 90% of textile materials) and products from 3 sub-sectors: garments, active goods and workwear. In this way, we will have a representative view on the challenges the textile sector is facing for circular transition. CISUTAC follows a holistic approach covering the technical, sectoral and socio-economic levels. We will provide systemic innovations at these levels and perform 3 pilots to demonstrate their feasibility and value: (i) Repair and disassembly; (ii) Sorting for reuse and recycling; (iii) Circular garments through fibre to fibre recycling and design for circularity. To realise these pilots, we will develop semi-automated workstations, analyse infrastructure and material flow, digitally enhance sorting operations and setup interventions with consumers. After the piloting phase, attention will be on the uptake of the results, by the sector, by the wider stakeholder group as well by the consumers. With (worldwide) leading brands and companies, CSOs, RTOs and EU associations, CISUTAC is truly EU-wide and covers the full novel circular value chain. Through the consortium, and further supported by the Transition Support Group with zz members, CISUTAC is strongly linked to ongoing initiatives allowing synergies and joint activities. This is essential for our implementation but also for leveraging the impact and enabling the shift towards a sustainable EU textiles & clothing, underpinned by circular material flows and supported by the wider stakeholders. CISUTAC will bring significant impact of scale via its innovations on repair, dismantling, sorting and fibre-to-fibre recycling. Realising this impact will lead to a reduction of ca. 975ktonCO2eq yearly and to new business activities and markets that together have a value of ca. €250mio and lead to ca. 1300 FTE, also social economy.