Nature Based Strategies for Sustainable and Circular Materials in the Textile Sector

The current mainly linear model of production and consumption of textile and fashion industry causes enormous consequences in terms of resource depletion and environmental degradation and also exerts significant pressure on biodiversity. Indeed, the textiles has been identified as one of the priority sectors to be addressed in order to achieve the global decarbonisation goal. The decarbonisation issue, however, cannot be separated from that of biodiversity. The need to address these two challenges forces the identification of new sustainable and circular strategies for textile sector. For these reasons, in March 2022 the European Commission presented a new strategy to make textiles more durable, repairable, reusable and recyclable (European Commission 2022). The paper presents the partial results of a research that addressed the topic of reducing the life-cycle impacts of a textile product in order to identify requirements for innovative materials and components that meet the ‘Carbon Neutral’ and ‘Nature Positive’ objectives. A comparative analysis of the main documents issued in this direction made it possible to identify the main categories of environmental impact of the textile chain, in relation to the different life cycle phases, and led to the definition of appropriate evaluation criteria. These criteria were used to carry out an analysis of the potential benefits related to the use of two different strategies for replacing traditional virgin fibres: either with a secondary raw material from recycling of textile waste or with bio-based materials derived from agricultural scraps and agro-food industry waste.