The EU Textiles Ecosystem Platform has released the second edition of the Best Practices report, highlighting ten outstanding initiatives published between August 2025 and January 2026. These best practices, identified and validated by the editorial team, showcase practical levers to support a more competitive, sustainable and resilient ecosystem:  governance mechanisms that steer behaviour through incentives, digital infrastructures that organise material flows, and technology or service models that embed circularity into daily operations.

The report features both collective actions and company-led innovations, spanning a wide range of ecosystem segments and geographies. These best practices provide replicable examples across multiple stages of the textile lifecycle, from raw material sourcing and fibre production to manufacturing, distribution, use, repair and end-of-life management.

The following organisations and initiatives are featured in the report:

1. Lenzing: A Key Player in Sustainable Textile Innovation
Lenzing demonstrates a holistic approach to sustainability in the man-made fibres sector, combining responsible wood sourcing and science-based climate targets with circular innovations like incorporating recycled textile waste into new TENCEL™ Lyocell fibres.

2. Embedding circular thinking in product design: IKEA guidelines
IKEA translates circular economy principles into accessible product design guidelines, actively reducing its environmental footprint by focusing on durability, repairability, and integrating recycled and alternative fibres into its home textiles.

3. BIOTEXFUTURE: transforming the textile industry towards bio-based materials
This open innovation platform brings together research institutes and industry partners in Germany to fund and accelerate the transition from petroleum-based raw materials to sustainable, bio-based textile alternatives.

4. Refashion: from compliance mechanism to ecosystem enabler
Operating in France, this Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme goes beyond mandatory waste collection by using eco-modulated fees to actively fund and incentivise eco-design, repair, reuse, and recycling innovation across the value chain.

5. Lindström: a professional textile service model grounded in circular economy principles
This Finnish company showcases the environmental benefits of a service-based rental model for professional textiles, extending product lifecycles through durable design, systematic maintenance, repair, and structured end-of-life recycling.

6. Driving Circularity Through Waste-Derived Materials in Textiles and Leather
Highlighting industrial symbiosis, pioneers like Orange Fiber and Sabant are successfully transforming agricultural by-products—such as citrus peels and brewery barley malt—into luxurious, sustainable fabrics and vegan leather alternatives.

7. Ethletic: a practical approach to ethical and sustainable footwear
This German sneaker brand embeds fair-trade and ethical production throughout its supply chain, ensuring living wages for workers in Pakistan, utilising vegan materials, and offering direct repair services to extend product life.

8. Connecting actors of the textile value chain through digital platforms: the case of the Reverse Resources Platform
Reverse Resources provides a digital Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform that traces production leftovers globally, intelligently matching available textile waste streams with recyclers to scale high-value, textile-to-textile recycling.

9. Technology centres as ecosystem orchestrators: the case of the Portuguese CITEVE
CITEVE supports SMEs, offering advanced testing, prototyping, and applied research capabilities while leading the Portuguese Textile Cluster to drive green and digital innovation.

10. Optimising textile production: AI-Driven and process-oriented solution to reduce cutting scrap
Lectra leverages artificial intelligence and cloud-based high-performance computing to optimise material nesting and cutting processes, significantly reducing fabric and leather scrap while balancing sustainability with manufacturing profitability.

Each case study in the report is described in detail, providing practical insights into the challenges faced, solutions developed, and results achieved. Readers will find concrete examples of how digital infrastructures, structured design guidelines, and cross-sector partnerships are already transforming the textiles ecosystem.

The EU Textiles Ecosystem Platform will continue to identify and share new best practices, encouraging all stakeholders to engage, propose their own initiatives, and draw inspiration from these leading examples.

Read the full second edition of the Report on Best Practices for detailed insights and discover how the textiles ecosystem is advancing towards a more competitive, greener, and more resilient future.