Textile design process needs transforming, Sympatex says
Membrane materials developer Sympatex has called March 30, when the European Commission published its package of European Green Deal proposals “an unforgettable date”.
These proposals aim to put in place new rules to make “almost all physical goods in the EU market” more friendly to the environment, more circular, and energy-efficient. A textile-specific package called The EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles is part of the wider announcement.
Sympatex’s reaction was to say that the textile sector will be the first industry to shift fully from a linear to a circular economy, with products being designed to be more durable, reusable, repairable, recyclable and energy-efficient.
Chief executive, Dr Rüdiger Fox, said: “Until now, we have created products pretty much by ignoring our impact upstream and downstream. What we will have now is an eco-design process. The creative process of the product will need to take into account certain constraints, but the beauty is that these constraints will not limit innovation, but accelerate it.”
He said the changes the European Commission is bringing in will lead companies to realise that “only certain materials are recycable”. Once they realise this, Dr Fox continued, “people can focus on developing new solutions with those materials”.
He estimated that the industry now has only three or four years in which to transform its design process.
Image: Sympatex
