The document, entitled The Digital Transformation of the European Textile and Apparel Industry, was presented at the 20th Textile ETP Annual Conference in Amsterdam and represents the collaborative efforts of more than 100 sector experts over six months.
The roadmap sets out a plan intended to help European textile businesses adapt to digital changes or face the risk of decline.
It highlights three main drivers behind the push for digital transformation: rising demand for competitive agility against rapid international competitors, upcoming regulatory requirements from the EU, such as the Digital Product Passport (DPP) and the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), and the structural data demands of circular and service-oriented business models.
Textile ETP president Marina Crnoja-Cosic said: “Combining the physical world of fibres and textile machines with the digital world of bits and bytes and soft factors like creativity, hands-on expertise or consumer psychology with rational and precise data-driven decision making in complex, fast-paced supply chains are not easy tasks. But they must be undertaken, not only in the interest of greater competitiveness of the EU industry, but also to fully comply with a diverse set of upcoming EU regulations, including the Digital Product Passport and to operate at a much higher level of sustainability and circularity in line with the vision of the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles.”
The roadmap sets a 2035 target for creating a digitally integrated and transparent European textile sector, outlining a significant shift in the industry’s structure and operations.
According to the strategy, achieving this vision will require advances across four key areas: data infrastructure, digitised hardware, interoperable software, and human-AI collaboration.
It also points to Data Infrastructure, Digital Product Creation, Digital Production, and the Digital Supply Chain as the core building blocks necessary for this transformation.
In addition, the roadmap makes 10 recommendations to EU policymakers, identifying four as top priorities.
These include connecting sustainability regulations to digitalisation and competitiveness, mandating interoperability and open standards for publicly funded digital innovations, creating and supporting a European Textile Data Space with over 500 active participants by 2030, and financially supporting a harmonised Textile Data Ontology.
EURATEX president Mario Jorge Machado commented: “The priority now should be implementation: making sure that digital solutions are accessible, affordable and relevant for companies on the ground. If Europe wants a competitive, circular and resilient textile and apparel ecosystem, digitalisation must become a practical enabler for industry, not an additional layer of complexity.”
The strategy underscores five actions that require collaboration across the sector, including co-developing a European Textile Data Ontology, setting up shared digital fabric libraries, ensuring end-to-end Digital Product Passport data flows, creating feedback channels between recyclers and designers, and developing a cross-border digital skills pipeline.
Textile ETP said it plans to develop detailed approaches for putting the recommendations into practice in the latter half of 2026, following this initial presentation.
The DigitX Innovation Hub is coordinated by Textile ETP, EURATEX, and Lectra, with backing from Smartex.ai, Suomen Tekstiili & Muoti, ITA Academy, Politecnico di Milano, and CITEVE.
