Latest news with #EcodesignforSustainableProductsRegulation
Fibre2Fashion
10 hours ago
- Business
- Fibre2Fashion
Matthew Ekholm DPP and Circularity Specialist
Protokol's DPP solution enables companies to align with upcoming DPP mandates As the European Union moves closer to implementing the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), businesses across industries are under mounting pressure to future-proof their operations and comply with forthcoming sustainability mandates. A key requirement—the Digital Product Passport (DPP)—is set to revolutionise how product data is managed, accessed, and shared across the value chain. In response, Protokol has partnered with Productsup to deliver a seamless solution that enables manufacturers to transform existing product data into fully compliant DPPs both efficiently and cost-effectively. To gain deeper insights into this timely partnership and its implications for the textile and apparel sector, Fibre2Fashion spoke with Protokol's DPP and Circularity Specialist, Matthew Ekholm. In this exclusive interview, he discusses the critical challenges brands are facing, how the new integration streamlines DPP creation, and why early adoption could give companies a competitive edge in the circular economy era. Protokol offers Digital Product Passport solutions tailored to manufacturing. In sectors like textiles, what specific pain points is Protokol solving most frequently today? Protokol's Digital Product Passport (DPP) solutions are allowing fashion and textile enterprises to align with and prepare for compliance with the EU's upcoming DPP mandate—a pillar of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR). The legislation, which entered into force last year and is set to impact any company placing products in the EU marketplace within the mandated product groups, stands as a key tool in advancing circularity in the EU. In regard to pain points, many companies are both unaware and unfamiliar with the upcoming circularity regulations. Our DPP consultancy services help companies understand the requirements, while our DPP Solution offers a tool for companies to create DPPs for their products in preparation for the upcoming DPP mandate. Another pain point many in the fashion sector face is the frequent challenge of data management—from product data and sustainability metrics to environmental impact information and more. This data is often generated by various actors across the value chain and is typically stored in disparate or siloed systems. For companies looking to comply with DPP regulations, collecting and organising this data can be a big challenge. That is why we are pleased to announce the news of our partnership with Productsup. As an overview, our recent partnership with Productsup, the feed product data management and syndication platform, allows companies to collate their product data, pulling in data from a variety of different sources. They can then quickly and easily map this data against DPP templates to ensure that the required data is both present and displayed in a valid format. DPPs can then quickly and easily be created from this mapped data—solving the challenges related to collecting and organising data from disparate sources. How does Protokol ensure interoperability between its Digital Product Passport systems and legacy manufacturing systems that are still widely in use? With our API-enabled DPP solution, customers can import product data directly from external sources (legacy systems) to populate their DPPs. Ultimately, this means that the DPP solution will work in tandem with legacy systems, rather than simply replacing them. The benefits of this are that product data can remain in existing systems and be utilised for DPPs; ERP and SCM systems may also be able to support this data-gathering process. As our API-enabled DPP solution continues to gain traction, there is no need for the replacement of legacy systems, and the time or resources required for implementation are lowered. When it comes to our integration with Productsup more specifically, customers can not only import product data from single sources, but also instead import, merge, and map data fields from existing product data against required data fields for the DPP. In practice this means that data can be gathered from not just a single source, but a multitude of legacy systems across the supply chain. This has distinct advantages for organisations where the product data they may be required to include in their Digital Product Passports is collected and stored by suppliers, manufacturers, partners or external systems. How does your partnership with Productsup position Protokol to support brands in meeting broader sustainability reporting directives like the CSRD? The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) aims to make businesses more accountable for the sustainability of their operations and supply chains by enhancing transparency. While the deadline has faced delays—likely into late 2025—certain businesses operating within the EU will soon need to report their sustainability and social data in line with the European Sustainability Reporting Standard (ESRS), which includes greenhouse gas emissions, water usage, and even working conditions. Instead of seeking to 'plug' these gaps manually, DPPs can be used to support fashion brands in meeting this regulatory demand. When furnishing DPPs, typically the data collected comes from the broader supply chain (e.g. suppliers, external manufacturers), in addition to the company itself. This makes the inclusion of Scope 3 data and many other environmental impact data points much easier. With data needing to be verifiable and transparent for the ESPR, this has the potential to also be utilised to meet many of the CSRD reporting requirements (such as the Scope 3 data reporting requirement) by providing a verifiable audit trail necessary for CSRD compliance. Therefore, as DPPs can be utilised to support both CSRD and ESPR compliance, businesses will need to collect and standardise detailed product data, such as material composition, repair guidelines, and certifications, in secure, machine-readable formats accessible to stakeholders across the supply chain. Our integration with Productsup will help fashion brands seamlessly collect and organise data, embed it into DPPs efficiently, and ensure comprehensive compliance with multiple circularity requirements. Can you walk us through a recent implementation of Protokol's technology in a textile or apparel manufacturing firm and the measurable impact it had? While not yet announced, Protokol is currently working on a pilot with a customer in the fashion resale space who has taken steps to implement DPPs not just for compliance but also to empower the sustainable consumer. Garments entering the resale market will be issued with a unique DPP that provides a transparent overview of key product lifecycle data. By providing consumers with transparent product insight, they can become more confident in the authenticity, sustainability, circularity and history of the product they are buying. This is vital in encouraging consumers to become more 'eco-conscious' when it comes to purchasing decisions, empowering them with the information needed to make sustainable choices and actively impact what items remain in circulation or stop being produced. Supply chain transparency is a key challenge—how does your technology enable real-time traceability and trust across stakeholders? With the Product Lifecycle Event Registration feature, the Protokol DPP enables users to accurately track events throughout a product's lifecycle, from creation, to repair to recycle. By allowing user-generated or system-generated events to be created as part of the DPP, all permissioned stakeholders involved in a product's lifecycle can create events related to manufacture, repair, end-of-life and more, ensuring no major lifecycle event is unaccounted for. Such trails are created to foster enhanced traceability and reporting. In simple terms, Protokol's DPP solution can capture data insights relating to how a product is used, its lifespan, and more; and not just from the manufacturers, but from stakeholders across the value chain and even directly from the customers who use it. Textile and apparel manufacturers are under pressure to meet ESG goals—how is Protokol helping such clients track and report environmental or ethical compliance using DPPs? Protokol's Digital Product Passport solution enables companies to align with (and eventually comply with) upcoming DPP mandates, which are being put forward by the EU as a tool for encouraging the circularity and sustainability of products. DPP solutions will allow companies to meet ESG goals by demonstrating the sustainability and circularity of a product to stakeholders across the value chain, including end-users such as the consumer. Data included in DPPs can include the environmental impact of products, including metrics such as water usage, carbon footprint, and more. With some DPP solutions, this data can be exported for auditing or compliance purposes. In this way, DPP solutions such as Protokol's are enabling textile and apparel brands to track and report the environmental impact of their products. With the EU's upcoming ESPR and Digital Product Passport mandate, how is Protokol enabling fashion and textile businesses to turn existing e-commerce data into compliant DPPs efficiently and at scale? We are aware that gathering product data to create DPPs is often a significant and strenuous undertaking, usually requiring teams to source data from a range of disparate systems prior to even considering standardisation or organisation. At a time when deadlines are closing in, this process is a huge burden on companies that need to begin their ESPR compliance journey. Our integration with Productsup is wholly focused on making this process seamless for their customers, including fashion retailers, who now need to gather their data and implement it into DPPs ahead of the ESPR's DPP mandate coming into force. Productsup allows for direct integration with e-commerce platforms or various other sources, allowing data to be imported into the platform in one smooth and streamlined effort. This data can then be quickly and easily mapped against purpose-built DPP templates to allow companies to create DPPs efficiently and at scale. How are textile and apparel manufacturers leveraging DPPs to boost operational efficiency, sustainability, and traceability in supply chains? Beyond compliance and efficiency with EU regulations, DPPs are unlocking new value for textile and apparel brands. They enable better storytelling by letting consumers scan a data carrier on a product, such as a QR code, and see a garment's journey. By amplifying an item's sustainability credentials, they empower brands to build loyalty by proving their commitment to ethical and sustainable practices. This is particularly important amidst the phenomenon of 'greenwashing' and the challenges businesses also face, beyond regulatory demands, to prove their sustainability pledges at a time when so many are positioning themselves as 'ethical' to increase sales and garner attraction. Moreover, from an operational efficiency standpoint, DPPs streamline data management across the product lifecycle. Traditionally, businesses have struggled with fragmented information systems and manual documentation. In other words, DPPs consolidate key product data—such as material composition, origin, and disposal advice—into one digital format that is accessible in real time to all stakeholders. Are you seeing more demand from large enterprises or mid-size manufacturers? How are adoption patterns varying globally? Although compliance timelines and regulatory requirements vary, both SMEs and large enterprises remain on edge as they navigate the initial steps towards complying with the EU regulation. Off the back of this, it is unsurprising that we are seeing demand coming from both large enterprises and SMEs when it comes to DPP adoption. Patterns of adoption are largely in line with the ESPR's prioritised industries, with textiles being one of the first. We are also seeing interest from other industries where the companies themselves value the DPP use cases beyond compliance, such as sustainability and circularity use cases. Where do you see the manufacturing industry in the next five years, and what role will Protokol play in shaping that future? Over the next five years, the manufacturing industry is poised for a major transformation driven by tightening sustainability regulations, growing consumer demand for transparency, and technological innovation. One of the most significant shifts will be the widespread adoption of DPPs, which will become an important tool for facilitating enhanced circularity of products across a variety of industries. We expect to see an increase in demand for products that are made from more sustainable materials, for manufacturers that utilise more sustainable materials, produce less waste, and have a smaller environmental footprint. Added to this, we also expect to see increased demand for remanufacturing, and for the reuse of components alongside higher rates of product refurbishment and repair. As regulatory frameworks like ESPR become more stringent and expand globally, manufacturers will be compelled to shift from linear production models towards closed-loop systems. This transition will demand digital infrastructure that can ensure data integrity, interoperability, and scalability. With increasing global focus on ESG compliance, how are manufacturers integrating sustainability and transparency into their operations and supply chains? As the EU's circularity movement and varied regulatory demands work their way down to enterprises across industries, manufacturers across sectors are integrating DPPs to give more visibility of products across the value chain for multiple stakeholders. Due to the detailed data DPPs provide, they can support and inform future (more sustainable) design decisions. Via DPPs, sustainability attributes (e.g., carbon footprint, water usage, biodegradability) can be digitally captured and shared from the outset, enabling better product stewardship and circularity across the item's value chain. Furthermore, concerning increased sustainability, DPPs facilitate new, sustainable business models—such as resale, repair, and recycling—by offering stakeholders (such as resellers or consumers) the product data they need to keep materials in use longer. This aligns manufacturers with circular economy goals and reduces their dependence on sourcing new resources. DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Clothing prioritized in European Commission's 5-year plan
This story was originally published on Fashion Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily Fashion Dive newsletter. The European Commission has prioritized textiles, especially clothing, in its five-year working plan for implementing legislation outlined in the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, or ESPR, which will begin this year, according to a press release. According to the plan, the commission will now, over the next five years, begin laying down specific requirements for product labeling and design. Those requirements will include minimum standards for a product's durability and recycled content, as well as mandatory digital product passports, per the press release. For clothing, these requirements need to be adopted in 2027, and apply to all products placed on the European market, regardless of their country of origin, or the size of the company producing them. ESPR was formally adopted by the European Commission last year, and the regulation is intended to help the European Union meet its environmental, circularity, and climate goals. The measure also harmonizes sustainability requirements and will 'level the playing field' across the EU's 27 member countries, which include 450 million consumers, per the working plan's details. Textiles, especially clothing, emerged as a top priority in the plan. The European market size for the sector, excluding footwear, is estimated at 78 billion euros, or about $88 billion. Although footwear is not included in the working plan currently outlined, a study will be commissioned to evaluate improving footwear's sustainability, to be completed by 2027. The current plan is intended to 'build up experience and capacity of ESPR to reach its full regulatory potential,' eventually expanding to other products, per plan documents. 'By setting clear priorities, we are providing legal certainty and predictability for the concerned industries, fostering innovation, and driving investment to support the transition to a circular economy,' Jessika Roswall, Commissioner for Environment, Water Resilience and a Competitive Circular Economy, said in the press release. Recommended Reading European Council adopts proposal to delay sustainability reporting Sign in to access your portfolio
Zawya
01-05-2025
- Business
- Zawya
South Africa: Local fashion venture Faro is transforming textile waste into luxury fashion using AI
Unsold inventory is one of the biggest problems for fashion retailers, with mounting levels of excess stock being discarded, incinerated or left to waste. The rise of fast fashion coupled with the rapid growth of e-commerce has perpetuated a textile waste epidemic. As a result, global fashion is in the middle of a sustainability crisis, made even more apparent by the increased pressure of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation requiring EU brands to report on the management of excess stock in 2025, and making it illegal for brands to destroy unsold products in 2026. The urgency to find sustainable solutions to reduce the percentage of unsold inventory and decrease annual global carbon emissions has never been greater. African fashion venture, Faro, is using AI to turn $425bn in unsold global fashion into an opportunity. The company enables brands to reduce their overstock and environmental impact, with traceable distribution in emerging markets. Faro has flipped the switch on fashion retail by creating high-end shopping experiences where customers have the opportunity to own and wear global brands that might otherwise be out of budget and in turn, offers a sustainable solution to global brands struggling with unsold inventory. Powered by AI and predictive analytics Faro's operating system, Faro IQ, is transforming how fashion meets demand. Powered by AI and predictive analytics, it learns from past sales, forecasts future trends, and tags each product with detailed attributes. This allows Faro to allocate the right stock to the right stores based on real customer behaviour - boosting sell-through and reducing waste. The same tech drives Faro's personalised marketing, delivering targeted messages to shoppers based on what they actually buy. While legacy retailers rely on spreadsheets and manual guesswork, Faro's AI makes smart decisions in seconds - optimising planning, buying, pricing, allocation, and marketing across the entire supply chain. 'By designing AI-powered agents to automate complex workflows, we are able to streamline our operations, a key differentiator from legacy retailers', explains FARO co-founder and COO, Amber Penney. Faro founders Amber Penney, David Torr, William McCarren and Chris Makhanya, wanted to change the idea that high-end fashion was only available to a small percentage of the population, with textile waste being at the forefront of their solution. This approach not only ensures affordability for consumers but also reduces the industry's environmental footprint. 'Our mission is to make high-end global brands accessible to South Africans, delivering unrivalled value to customers in an elevated shopping environment. We work with top global brands like G-Star, Zara, Levi's, Guess, Jack & Jones and Steve Madden, sourcing last-season stock at a discount and passing these low prices onto our customers,' adds Faro co-founder and CCO, Chris Makhanya. Faro has already had a meaningful impact on local unemployment, creating over 150 skilled jobs in their supply chain in the first year, with projections to create over 4,000 jobs by 2028 across the organisation. With every store that opens, more jobs are created both in-store as well as throughout the entire supply chain. Shopping should feel luxurious for everyone While many local retailers in South Africa focus solely on value, Faro is different, believing that shopping should feel luxurious for everyone. Each customer should feel stylish, valued, and unique when they walk in, and out of, their stores. Penney explains that at Faro, there is a major focus on personalised service, beautifully curated spaces, and an elevated shopping experience. Quips Penney, 'We like to think of ourselves in the realm of high-end fashion and curated spaces… minus the exclusivity and unattainable prices.' The first store opened in Liberty Promenade Mall, Mitchell's Plain, Western Cape, bringing premium fashion to a market where accessibility to high-end brands has traditionally been limited, ensuring that style and quality are no longer out of reach. Since then, Faro has grown rapidly, with six stores in N1 City, The Glen, Fourways Mall, Bayside Mall, Mamelodi Mall. In late 2024, Faro closed a $6M funding round led by JP Zammitt, the president of Bloomberg, to fuel store expansion and strengthen its proprietary tech platform. The team have ambitious plans to expand to 1,000 stores across South Africa and other emerging markets in the next few years. Faro, a proudly South African startup, is more than just a brand, it's a movement that champions value, dignity and sustainability. As consumer preferences evolve, the market continues to witness a surge in demand for diverse fashion choices, value-based purchasing, and sustainable clothing options. All rights reserved. © 2022. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Gulf Today
24-04-2025
- Business
- Gulf Today
Recycling textile waste should be a priority
Bangladesh's limited capacity to deal with the enormous waste generated by its textile sector may prove unsustainable as the global fashion industry faces pressure to reduce its environmental footprint. Bangladesh, the world's second-largest apparel producer, only recycles a small percentage of its textile waste, with the rest shipped abroad or left to pollute the landscape. As more countries introduce rules requiring greater recycled content in clothes, analysts and business owners say Bangladesh must expand recycling to meet demand from a global textile recycling market projected to be worth $9.4 billion by 2027, according to Reuters. The European Union this month published its first road map towards meeting the standards under its Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, which includes provisions for reducing the environmental harm caused by the textile industry. This will require Bangladesh and other fashion suppliers to boost recycling while improving working conditions in what is largely an informal sector, said Patrick Schröder, a senior research fellow at the British think tank Chatham House. ' Bangladesh's fashion industry is estimated to produce up to 577,000 metric tons of textile waste from the factories each year. What is processed has evolved into a vast, informal business in Bangladesh. Thousands of informal workshops sort and bundle the waste, known as jhut, and what remains in Bangladesh is down-cycled to make low-value products like mattresses, pillows and cushions. When clothing scraps are swept up from factory floors, politicians and other influential people control who gets it and at what price, said Asadun Noor, project coordinator at the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in Dhaka. The scraps go to hundreds of mostly unregistered workshops near the capital Dhaka, where they are cleaned and sorted into batches based on quality, colour and other considerations. Tens of thousands of workers, 70% of them women, sort the remnants for 10 to 12 hours a day, a study by the UN's children agency UNICEF said last year, the Reuters report adds. Workers said they toil for low wages without key safety measures, like drinking water, paid sick leave or protection from harassment. One of them is Sabura Begum, 30, who works with 250 other women at a workshop in the city of Narayanganj, near Dhaka. 'I earn a wage of about $80 a month and it does not make it easy to run my family,' she said. A small share of the waste sorted in workshops like Begum's is sent to about two dozen recycling factories in Bangladesh. A large portion is exported to other countries such as India or Finland for recycling into new fibre where this is a larger base of recycling facilities as well as advanced technology like chemical recycling that produces strong, fresh fibres. Some of the fibres made from exported scraps are then sent back to Bangladesh to be made into clothes. More local recycling could save Bangladesh about $700 million a year in imports, the Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains report estimated. Other major textile hubs are ramping up recycling capacity. For example, India recycles or reuses about 4.7 million tons, or about 60%, of its textile waste, according to a report by Fashion for Good, a coalition of businesses and non-profits. Some Bangladeshi companies are aiming to compete and provide proper labour standards. In 2017, entrepreneur Abdur Razzaque set up Recycle Raw, which has now become one of the largest waste-processing businesses in Bangladesh. A few local recycling factories are also investing in adding more production lines, but large-scale investment in technology like chemical recycling, with support from fashion brands and development-finance organisations is needed, said Abdullah Rafi, CEO of recycler Broadway Regenerated Fiber, based in the city of Ashulia, near Dhaka. However, investors expect a regular supply of waste feed stock and that means the current opaque system of handling waste would have to go, he said.
Observer
24-04-2025
- Business
- Observer
Textile giant Bangladesh pushed to recycle more waste
Bangladesh's limited capacity to deal with the enormous waste generated by its textile sector may prove unsustainable as the global fashion industry faces pressure to reduce its environmental footprint. Bangladesh, the world's second-largest apparel producer, only recycles a small percentage of its textile waste, with the rest shipped abroad or left to pollute the landscape. As more countries introduce rules requiring greater recycled content in clothes, analysts and business owners say Bangladesh must expand recycling to meet demand from a global textile recycling market projected to be worth $9.4 billion by 2027. The European Union this month published its first road map towards meeting the standards under its Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, which includes provisions for reducing the environmental harm caused by the textile industry. This will require Bangladesh and other fashion suppliers to boost recycling while improving working conditions in what is largely an informal sector, said Patrick Schröder, a senior research fellow at the British think tank Chatham House. "As the call for recycling grows and fast fashion goes out of fashion in the coming years, millions of jobs will be impacted, and Bangladesh needs to think ahead to step up its capacity to keep up with the changes," he said. Bangladesh's fashion industry is estimated to produce up to 577,000 metric tonnes of textile waste from the factories each year. Most of it is shipped abroad, and the rest is left to clog bodies of water, pollute the soil, enter landfills or be incinerated, which produces toxic gases, according to a report by Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains, a project supported by the EU and the Finnish government. What is processed has evolved into a vast, informal business in Bangladesh. Thousands of informal workshops sort and bundle the waste, known as jhut, and what remains in Bangladesh is down-cycled to make low-value products like mattresses, pillows and cushions. When clothing scraps are swept up from factory floors, politicians and other influential people control who gets it and at what price, said Asadun Noor, project coordinator at the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in Dhaka. "This is a very opaque process, offering limited visibility of the waste value chain to clothing brands and suppliers," he said. Women work in a factory where fabric waste from garments is transformed into cotton to make mattresses, in Narayanganj, Bangladesh. - Reuters The scraps go to hundreds of mostly unregistered workshops near the capital Dhaka, where they are cleaned and sorted into batches based on quality, colour and other considerations. Tens of thousands of workers, 70 per cent of them women, sort the remnants for 10 to 12 hours a day, a study by the UN's children agency Unicef said last year. Workers said they toil for low wages without key safety measures, like drinking water, paid sick leave or protection from harassment. One of them is Sabura Begum, 30, who works with 250 other women at a workshop in the city of Narayanganj, near Dhaka. "I earn a wage of about $80 a month and it does not make it easy to run my family," she said. A small share of the waste sorted in workshops like Begum's is sent to about two dozen recycling factories in Bangladesh. A large portion is exported to other countries such as India or Finland for recycling into new fibre where this is a larger base of recycling facilities as well as advanced technology like chemical recycling that produces strong, fresh fibres. Some of the fibres made from exported scraps are then sent back to Bangladesh to be made into clothes. More local recycling could save Bangladesh about $700 million a year in imports, the Switch to Circular Economy Value Chains report estimated. Other major textile hubs are ramping up recycling capacity. For example, India recycles or reuses about 4.7 million tons, or about 60 per cent, of its textile waste, according to a report by Fashion for Good, a coalition of businesses and non-profits. Some Bangladeshi companies are aiming to compete and provide proper labour standards. In 2017, Entrepreneur Abdur Razzaque set up Recycle Raw, which has now become one of the largest waste-processing businesses in Bangladesh. "We offer decent wages and respect basic labour standards - ensuring things like drinking water, air circulation and security for our largely female workforce - so we attract and retain them much better than others," Razzaque said. A few local recycling factories are also investing in adding more production lines, but large-scale investment in technology like chemical recycling, with support from fashion brands and development-finance organisations is needed, said Abdullah Rafi, CEO of recycler Broadway Regenerated Fiber, based in the city of Ashulia, near Dhaka. However, investors expect a regular supply of waste feed stock and that means the current opaque system of handling waste would have to go, he said. "What we now need is more finance and collaboration among brands, suppliers, waste handlers and recyclers to scale up our capacity," said Rafi.
