The EU-funded CISUTAC project has concluded after four years of work across the European textile value chain, releasing a package of technologies, open datasets, consumer research and policy recommendations aimed at supporting the shift to a circular textile and clothing sector.

Project partners presented the final results on 22 and 23 September at the ECOSYSTEX Conference in Antwerp, covering repair, disassembly, recycling, consumer behaviour and policy development.

For sourcing teams and suppliers, the most commercially relevant output is the technical validation work. CISUTAC tested repair, disassembly and recycling technologies under real operating conditions rather than in laboratories. The trials included methods that significantly cut the time required for full zipper repairs — a cost driver in repair and returns operations — as well as automated disassembly systems for difficult-to-recycle protective equipment.

The project also ran spinning trials showing that recycled fibres can be spun into yarns with sufficient strength for use in new garments. That result matters directly for yarn spinners and fabric mills weighing recycled-content claims against performance specs, particularly as ecodesign requirements tighten in the EU. Alongside the trials, CISUTAC produced open tools and datasets designed to make textile sorting faster and more consistent — an operational bottleneck for sorters feeding fibre recovery lines.

Many pilots ran inside consortium partners' own operations, putting the technologies and campaigns in front of textile sorters, retail employees and consumers instead of remaining at the theoretical stage.

The consumer research strand was large in scale and backed by national awareness campaigns and local guidelines. Its aim was to identify the factors driving decisions to repair, reuse and buy second-hand textiles, and to test ways of encouraging more circular consumption habits.

Policy work formed the third strand. CISUTAC used assessments of possible future scenarios for the European textile sector to build recommendations covering waste management, public procurement, ecodesign, standardisation and Extended Producer Responsibility. For brands selling into the EU, these recommendations signal the compliance areas — EPR schemes and ecodesign rules in particular — where obligations will likely harden.

"CISUTAC has demonstrated that textile circularity is possible when innovation, collaboration and practical implementation come together," said project coordinators Lien Van der Schueren and Guy Buyle of Centexbel. "We hope the project has not only inspired companies across the value chain, but also provided them with knowledge, tools and evidence needed to take further steps towards more circular textiles."

CISUTAC also contributed to the creation of ECOSYSTEX, a European community of practice that brings together more than 100 EU-funded textile circularity projects. The initiative will continue sharing knowledge and supporting collaboration after the CISUTAC programme itself ends, giving suppliers a single reference point for ongoing EU circularity research.

Textile ETP led the project's communication and dissemination activities, coordinated the creation of ECOSYSTEX and organised the Antwerp conference.

CISUTAC was a Horizon Europe project co-funded by the European Union and led by Centexbel, the Belgian research centre for textiles and plastics. Its consortium included companies, brands, civil society organisations, research and technology organisations and European associations from across the textile value chain.

The decision the results force on sourcing and compliance teams is straightforward: with repair-time reductions, recycled-fibre spinning viability and sorting datasets now validated in live operations, circularity commitments can be traced to tested processes rather than pledges — and the open outputs are available to benchmark internal programmes against before EU ecodesign and EPR rules make them mandatory.