ETC/CE Report 2/2022: Textiles and the Environment - The role of design in Europe's circular economy

10 Feb 2022

Tom Duhoux, Kévin Le Blévennec, Saskia Manshoven, Francesca Grossi, Mona Arnold, Lars Fogh Mortensen

This ETC/CE report provides the detailed analysis underpinning the EEA Briefing “Textiles and the environment: The role of design in Europe’s circular economy”.

From a European consumption perspective, textiles have on average the fourth highest negative life cycle impacts on the environment and climate change – after food, housing and mobility. A shift to a circular textiles production and consumption system with longer use, reuse and recycling can contribute to reducing those impacts, along with reductions in overall consumption. One important measure is circular design of textiles to improve product durability, repairability and recyclability, and to ensure the uptake of secondary raw materials in new products.

The aim of this report is to contribute to the implementation of the EU Strategy for Textiles and the EU Sustainable Product Initiative through an improved understanding of the environmental impacts from textiles from a European perspective and identify design principles and measures to increase circularity in textiles.