Fibre cultivation for textiles potentially competes with food production or other industrial crops for arable land, leading to increasing deforestation, food scarcity, and malnutrition. Apart from greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, pollution caused by fertiliser use during cultivation and the use of hazardous chemicals during processing is an important threat to ecosystem health and biodiversity. Additionally, it is estimated that more than half a million tonnes of microplastics are annually discharged into the world’s oceans as a result of washing of plastic‐based textile products.
This report provides an overview of the production and consumption of textiles in Europe and discusses how a circular economy for textiles can contribute to lowering the environmental and climate impacts associated with textiles, while offering new business opportunities. It provides an introduction into the world of textiles and an overview of trends in the production and consumption of textiles. It then considers the environmental and social impacts of textiles, making suggestions for promoting the movement from a linear to a circular production and consumption system for textiles. This includes circular business models and policy for features such as choice of materials and design.