Textination Newsline

• Critical assessment of the current business situation
• Future expectations deteriorate
• Investment climate remains subdued
• Expectations for application industries vary
• Growth drivers with little movement
• Composites index points downwards

For the 23^rd time, Composites Germany (www.composites-germany.de) has collected current key figures on the market for fiber-reinforced plastics. All member companies of the supporting associations of Composites Germany: AVK and Composites United as well as the associated partner VDMA were surveyed.

In order to ensure that the different surveys can be compared without any problems, no fundamental changes were made to the survey this half-year. Once again, mainly qualitative data was collected in relation to current and future market developments.

Critical assessment of the current business situation
After the assessment of the current business situation was positive at a relatively stable level before the coronavirus crisis, the perception of the survey participants has now deteriorated significantly.       
 
With the exception of a few positive trends, the corresponding indicator has been pointing significantly downwards since 2022. There is still no sign of a trend reversal in the current survey. (see Fig. 1). The assessment of the general business situation is declining in all regions mentioned.

The reasons for the negative sentiment are manifold and were already evident in the previous surveys. High energy, raw material and logistics costs remain a major burden, especially for German industry, but also for many other countries in Europe. This is compounded by a weakening global economy and weak sales for many products in Asia. Massive competition to European products is growing there, particularly in terms of raw materials, which is also partly due to overcapacity, which in turn is putting enormous pressure on prices for suppliers here. Political uncertainties, protectionist tendencies and armed conflicts, such as in Ukraine and recently increasingly in the Middle East, are further worsening the economic climate.

At present, politicians do not seem to be succeeding in creating an environment conducive to business. The composites market has already seen sharp declines in the last two years. The industry continues to send pessimistic signals for the current year. The industry was and is an important economic sector for Germany in particular. It is threatened with further decline if the appropriate regulatory framework is not created to enable competitive production. Germany is currently facing structural changes that are necessary, particularly in terms of economic policy and ecology. These necessary adjustments will take many years and require high levels of investment. It is urgently advisable to finally find a balance between the necessary burden on industry/companies on the one hand and corresponding relief on the other. If the decline of German and European industry continues, at some point it will become questionable who should finance the restructuring. Only a healthy economy, which includes a manufacturing industry, will be able to invest and finance the necessary measures.

This will not be possible for the state itself. Even an expansion of employment in the public sector, as has been pushed in recent months to compensate for job losses in industry, only superficially solves this problem. Healthy state financing is based on a healthy economy. Something urgently needs to be done about this - at the moment, we are digging at our own foundations.
It is not only the assessment of the general business situation that remains pessimistic. The situation of their own companies also continues to be viewed critically. The picture is particularly negative for Germany. Almost 70% of respondents are critical of the current business situation in Germany. The view of global business and Europe is somewhat more positive.
Here, “only” 46% and 54% of respondents respectively assess the situation rather negatively.

Future expectations are becoming gloomier
While the last survey showed rather positive assessments of future expectations, this picture is currently becoming much gloomier. When asked about their assessment of future business development in general, the figures are consistently negative. At present, the respondents do not seem to believe that the situation will improve.  

Respondents were also rather pessimistic about their own company's future expectations, although their expectations regarding their own market position worldwide were positive (see Fig. 3).
It is striking that the view of the German region in relation to Europe and the global economy has been more critical since 2022. 25% of respondents expect the general market situation in Germany to develop negatively.

Only 18% expect the current situation to improve. The figures for Europe and the rest of the world are significantly better.
Only 3% expect the global situation to deteriorate further. 19% expect the situation to improve.

Investment climate remains subdued
The current cautious assessment of the economic situation continues to have an impact on the investment climate.

While 22% of participants in the last survey still expected an increase in personnel capacity (survey 1/2023 = 40%), this figure currently stands at just 13%. In contrast, 33% even expect a decrease in the area of personnel.

The proportion of respondents planning to invest in machinery is also declining. While 56% were still assuming corresponding investments in the last survey, this figure has now fallen to 44%.

Different expectations of application industries
The composites market is characterized by a high degree of heterogeneity in terms of both materials and applications. In the survey, participants were asked to give their assessment of the market development of different core areas.

The expectations are extremely varied. The two most important application areas are the mobility and construction/infrastructure sectors. Both are currently undergoing major upheavals or are affected by declines, which is also clearly reflected in the survey. Growth is expected above all in the wind energy and aviation sectors.

There are generally few shifts here compared to the last survey.

Growth drivers with little movement
In terms of materials, the trend in the assessment of growth drivers is continuing. Whereas for a long time GRP was named as the material from which the main growth impetus for the composites sector is to be expected, the main impetus is now once again expected to come from CFRP or across all materials. The trend from the last survey is continuing here.

There is a slight regional shift. The main impetus for growth is expected to come from Asia and North America. However, the EU (except Germany) is also mentioned. Germany is seen less strongly as a growth driver and continues to lose ground.

Composites Index points downwards
The numerous negative influences of recent times continue to be reflected in the overall Composites Index. This is falling in all areas.
 
In the last two years, the European composites market has lost around 15% of its production volume. Even if not all areas are affected by declines to the same extent, this should be an alarm signal. Until the coronavirus pandemic, there was a continuous increase in production volume for many years. Since the end of the coronavirus crisis and with the increase in macroeconomic uncertainties, Europe and Germany in particular appear to be becoming less attractive as a business location. With production volumes increasing worldwide, Europe's market share is now steadily declining. There are many reasons for this and there are no simple solutions. However, if the industrial location is to remain secure, something has to change quickly. Once companies have moved away, it is difficult to bring them back.

It remains to be seen whether it will be possible to counteract this negative trend. Targeted intervention, including by political decision-makers, would be desirable here. However, this cannot succeed without industry/business. Only together will it be possible to maintain and strengthen Germany as a business/industry location. For composites as a material group in general, there are still very good opportunities to expand the market position in both new and existing markets due to the special portfolio of properties. However, the dependency on overall economic developments remains.

It is now important to develop new market areas through innovation, to consistently exploit opportunities and to work together to further implement composites in existing markets. This can often be achieved better together than alone. With its excellent network, Composi-tes Germany offers a wide range of opportunities.  

The next composites market survey will be published in February 2025.

The professional rental service for linen and workwear is a textbook example of a circular, sustainable business model, which uses hard-wearing textiles instead of lower-quality or disposable products (reduce), optimises their useful life through professional care / repairs (reuse) and develops solutions to re-purpose them after they have reached the end of their useful life (recycle).

With its ‘Green Deal’, the European Commission has, inter alia, initiated the transformation of the garment-manufacturing industry from a business model of short-lived consumption to a more sustainable, circular system. By 2030, fast fashion will be replaced increasingly by textile products that have a longer life cycle and thus contribute to reducing environmental pollution. To achieve this goal, textiles must be more durable, reusable, repairable, fibre-to-fibre recyclable and have a greater proportion of recycled fibres. For the textile-service sector, the circularity requirements defined in Brussels have long been standard practice because hiring out professional workwear and protective clothing, as well as hotel and hospital linen, mop covers and other items, requires precisely these characteristics, i.e., the fabrics must be durable, washable – and therefore reusable – and easy to repair. Thanks to these qualities, rental linen can remain in the service cycle for a long time and has thus become established as a sustainable alternative to outright purchasing.

Laundry in the circular system
The textile-rental service offers a variety of systems tailored to the needs of different groups of customers. Workwear and protective clothing is stocked by textile-service laundries in a wide range of sizes, so that each customer's employees can be supplied with a suitable outfit. This is then labelled and made available to the individual wearer. If the employee leaves the customer's employ, the garments are taken back and – provided they are in good condition – reused as replacement clothing. In the case of workwear in the healthcare sector, as well as bed linen, table linen and towelling, a pool solution is more common. A laundry pool comprises similar textiles that are supplied without being assigned to a specific customer or wearer, which significantly reduces the quantity of textiles used.

Local textile cleaning is another major area of commercial textile care that also helps extend the life of textiles with a wide range of goods being professionally processed on behalf of private and commercial customers by such businesses. High-quality outerwear and underwear, premium home textiles, delicate down jackets or heavily soiled workwear are all restored to a clean, fresh and usable condition. And if stains prove particularly stubborn even after cleaning, a specialist company can re-colour the goods, thus ensuring they can be reused.

The recycling benefits of textile rental services
Besides the two main requirements of ‘reuse’ and ‘repair’, the sector is also working hard on the recycling of old textiles, as called for by the EU textile strategy. Several workwear manufacturers have developed their own returns models, whereby customers can hand back their old workwear when buying new items. The old workwear is then reused or recycled by partner organisations. Large companies, including Deutsche Telekom and Ikea, have also introduced a centralised returns and recycling system for discarded workwear. Indeed, the furniture giant has even created its own home textiles line using old workwear. However, the easiest way to implement a system of this kind is to use a rental service, as the goods are always returned to the specialist company and sorted there. In other words, the used laundry is collected in one place after washing, where it forms a large volume of similar discarded textiles, which greatly simplifies both the collection logistics and the recycling process. These favourable conditions have already led to the establishment of an initial initiative in which several textile service companies pool their waste hotel linen and channel it into industrial cotton-to-pulp recycling. Whether individual or joint initiatives, this is a testament to the industry's commitment to the development of solutions for ‘waste materials’.

Textile upcycling for designer items
Solutions for rejected textiles are more varied than simply recycling them. For example, Sweden's Fristads company offers a repair service for its workwear. The British department store chain John Lewis goes one step further. In a field trial, customers can hand in their garments to selected stores for cleaning and repair. The garments are processed by Johnsons, a laundry and dry-cleaning chain belonging to the Timpson Group. Designers have also recognised second-life opportunities for discarded workwear and contract textiles. For example, they apply elaborate decorations to items from their collections or take them apart and reassemble them. The creatively enhanced goods are then returned to the market as designer items. There are also recycling solutions for large contract textiles, which are converted into bags or cosmetic accessories or, after a colour-changing process, into small batches of aprons. However, the effect of such concepts on reducing textile waste is as small as their diversity. Only the established second-hand model is able to return larger quantities to the economic cycle.

The pros and cons of recycled materials
While the textile-care industry is unanimous in its support for the requirements of the EU textile strategy and is contributing solutions, it disagrees on increasing the proportion of recycled fibres in its products. Although there are already numerous workwear collections and hotel-linen ranges that meet the requirements from Brussels, some of the products do not, however, meet the durability requirements because the fibre quality deteriorates with each recycling stage. Therefore, many contract-textile manufacturers still rely exclusively on virgin, brand-new fibre materials to ensure durability in industrial laundering. Texcare International offers the industry the perfect setting to discuss this conflict of objectives in depth.

Imagine a coat that captures solar energy to keep you cozy on a chilly winter walk, or a shirt that can monitor your heart rate and temperature. Picture clothing athletes can wear to track their performance without the need for bulky battery packs.

University of Waterloo researchers have developed a smart fabric with these remarkable capabilities. The fabric has the potential for energy harvesting, health monitoring and movement tracking applications.

The new fabric can convert body heat and solar energy into electricity, potentially enabling continuous operation with no need for an external power source. Different sensors monitoring temperature, stress and more can be integrated into the material.

It can detect temperature changes and a range of other sensors to monitor pressure, chemical composition and more. One promising application is smart face masks that can track breath temperature and rate and detect chemicals in breath to help identify viruses, lung cancer and other conditions.

“We have developed a fabric material with multifunctional sensing capabilities and self-powering potential,” said Yuning Li, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. “This innovation brings us closer to practical applications for smart fabrics.”

Unlike current wearable devices that often depend on external power sources or frequent recharging, this breakthrough research has created a novel fabric which is more stable, durable, and cost-effective than other fabrics on the market.

This research, conducted in collaboration with Professor Chaoxia Wang and PhD student Jun Peng from the College of Textile Science and Engineering at Jiangnan University, showcases the potential of integrating advanced materials such as MXene and conductive polymers with cutting-edge textile technologies to advance smart fabrics for wearable technology.

Li, director of Waterloo’s Printable Electronic Materials Lab, highlighted the significance of this advancement, which is the latest in the university’s suite of technologies disrupting health boundaries.

“AI technology is evolving rapidly, offering sophisticated signal analysis for health monitoring, food and pharmaceutical storage, environmental monitoring, and more. However, this progress relies on extensive data collection, which conventional sensors, often bulky, heavy, and costly, cannot meet,” Li said. “Printed sensors, including those embedded in smart fabrics, are ideal for continuous data collection and monitoring. This new smart fabric is a step forward in making these applications practical.”

The next phase of research will focus on further enhancing the fabric’s performance and integrating it with electronic components in collaboration with electrical and computer engineers. Future developments may include a smartphone app to track and transmit data from the fabric to healthcare professionals, enabling real-time, non-invasive health monitoring and everyday use.

The study is published in the Journal of Materials Science & Technology.

• 82 per cent of shoppers are against the destroying of returns
• 67 per cent of under-30s accept higher prices for climate-neutral shipping

The digital shopping basket remains popular in Germany: around three in ten purchases are made online, ex-actly as many as in 2020. 27 per cent of respondents buy at least half of their goods and services online. Sustainability plays an important role here: around three quarters (77 per cent) of shoppers prefer suppliers that offer moderate and sustainable packaging and buy from them online. 43 per cent make sure when shopping that they only choose products that they are unlikely to have to return. And 82 per cent support the idea that returns should not be cancelled. These are the results of the representative ‘Postbank Digital Study 2024’.

According to the study, younger people are significantly more open to e-commerce than their elders: Digital natives (under 40 years of age) order 40 per cent of their goods online - 13 percentage points more than digital immigrants (over 40 years of age). The reasons for online shopping also vary greatly between young and old. While the convenient access to home for online shoppers remains the main reason for online shopping in all age groups, the proportion of young people at 52 per cent is significantly lower than the average (62 per cent).

For younger online shoppers, immediate availability (38 per cent) and the option to shop on the go via app (30 per cent) are particularly important. In comparison, only 22 per cent of older users have used apps for shopping to date. Favourable prices are estimated by 56 percent of older online shoppers, while this is important for only 46 percent of younger shoppers. There is a further difference in terms of flexible opening hours: 53 per cent of those aged 40 and over value the ability to shop at any time, compared to 40 per cent of online shoppers under 40.

‘We are facing similar challenges in the digitalisa-tion of our banking services,’ says Thomas Brosch, Head of Digital Sales at Postbank. ‘The needs of the generations differ. We have to constantly optimise our services and the user-friendliness of our offerings - in online banking, on smartphones and in physical branches. In this way, we can make good offers to young and old customers alike.’

Online shopping yes, but please without regrets
18 to 39-year-olds are much more willing to dig deeper into their pockets for sustainability than those aged 40 and over. For example, younger online shoppers pay more attention to CO2 offsetting and are more willing than average to make a voluntary compensation payment: 26 per cent prefer to order from shops where a donation can be made to compensate for the CO2 produced. In contrast, only 11 per cent of older people do so. Two out of three younger Germans also accept higher product prices for sustainable shipping, while not even one in two (46 per cent) of those aged 40 and over are inclined to do so.

70 per cent of digital natives already have experience with in-app purchases
The study also reveals another trend: around four out of ten Germans have already made in-app purchases. And 70 per cent of digital natives already have experience of buying additional content or functions in mobile applications. Those aged 40 and over are much more reluctant: only 29 per cent have already made in-app purchases at least once, and 43 per cent have no plans to do so. Digital natives are not only interested in a good price-performance ratio for in-app purchases, but also in adequate protection against unwanted spending. A quarter of this age group would like this, compared to just 18 per cent of older people.

Younger shoppers are more likely to use banking services when shopping online
When it comes to paying, six out of ten digital natives have already accepted instalment payments or credit offers when shopping online. In addition to favourable conditions (36%) and a reputable payment service provider (35%), it is particularly important to young shoppers that banking services are easy to use (35%). Across all age groups, 89 per cent of Germans have already used such banking services.

Background information on the Postbank Digital Study 2024
For the ‘Postbank Digital Study 2024 - The Digital Germans’, 3,171 residents were surveyed in April of this year. For the tenth year in a row, Postbank is using the study to investigate which developments are emerging in various areas of life with regard to digitalisation in general and financial topics in particular. In order to depict a population-representative structure, the sample was weighted according to federal state (proportionalisation), age and gender. The 2021 census of the Federal Statistical Office was used as the reference file. The results are rounded to whole numbers. Deviations in the totals can be explained by rounding differences.