ETC CE Report 2025/6 Textiles and the environment – The role of digital technologies in Europe’s circular economy

26 Mar 2025

Saskia Manshoven, Anse Smeets, Maarten Christis, Tom Duhoux, Dina Lingås, Francesca Grossi, Lars Fogh Mortensen, James Clarke

EU policies on textiles, including the EU Strategy and Sustainable and Circular Textiles and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), have been informed by data and knowledge provided by the EEA via previously published data and knowledge. In order to continue to inform the development and implementation of EU policies on textiles, selected data and knowledge have been updated in this report, including most recent trends in European textiles production, consumption, trade and export of used textile, as well as environmental impact estimations. The remainder of the report explores the role of digital technologies in Europe's circular economy for textiles. It provides an overview of digital tools (both existing and emerging) and investigates their potential for changing the way how, among others, clothing and other textiles are designed, manufactured, and serviced, how they can enable new ways for brands, retailers and consumers to interact, reduce returns, trace products across the entire lifecycle and enable circular business models.

This ETC CE report provides a background report for the 2025 EEA briefing on “The textiles value chain in numbers – bending the trend in Europe’s circular economy” and supplements the 2025 ETC CE report on “Measuring Europe’s textiles circularity – through the lenses of the EEA Circularity Metrics Lab”.

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