From the Sector

Under the motto “People Matter” numerous exhibitors will be presenting innovative solutions and concepts revolving around safe and healthy work at A+A 2023. This year, the overarching theme of the leading international trade fair will be the two megatrends digitalisation and sustainability.    

Furthermore, A+A organisers have changed the hall concept and optimised routing at the exhibition centre: the halls have been clearly segmented according to theme, thereby placing similar products and services in close proximity with each other. This makes it easier for visitors to locate the companies exhibiting ranges of particular interest to them and to find their bearings at the fairgrounds.  

Also new: Halls 16 and 17 will present Corporate Wear and Hall 15 the complete spectrum of components and accessories for manufacturing up-to-date protective wear.      

In addition to a Corporate Fashion Show visitors are in for further exciting forums as well as an extensive congress programme with international appeal: including the 38th International Congress for Occupational Safety and Occupational Medicine as well as the WearRAcon Europe, to be held in Germany for the first time as part of A+A. Likewise, such topics as ergonomics and New Work will be given significantly more visibility owing to new cooperations and expert lectures.  

From 9 to 11 August 2023, IFCO, Istanbul Fashion Connection will be held for the fourth time at the Istanbul Expo Center at 6 Halls. The fashion fair is organised by ITKIB Fairs, a subsidiary of Istanbul Apparel Exporter's Association, the umbrella organisation of the Turkish fashion and apparel industry.

IFCO has developed into a hub for fashion enthusiasts, designers, buyers and trendsetters and has established itself as an important international platform for the global fashion industry. IFCO brings together around 400 exhibitors from all product groups of the apparel and fashion industry under one roof in six clearly structured halls: womenswear, menswear, childrenswear, denim, sportswear, evening and occasion wear, bridal wear, lingerie, hosiery, leather and fur, shoes and accessories.

From high-end tailoring to streetwear and sustainable fashion, the fair will present a wide range of styles and trends. IFCO Brands present market leaders such as İpekyol, Climber, Damat, Kiğılı, B&G Store, Lufian, Jakamen, NaraMaxx, Giovane Gentile and Lee Cooper using IFCOto further expand their international network.

THE CORE ISTANBUL, successfully launched at IFCO in February, once again features a fascinating mix of established and emerging important Turkish designerswith their creative and innovative creations.

One focus of the fair will be the topic of sustainability. Companies will show their innovations. Ekoteks, the association's sustainability laboratory, supports the development of sustainable production and will also have a stand at IFCO to present the latest developments in this area.

The extensive supporting program with fashion shows and trend zones inspires visitors with the latest fashion trends and styles, while the seminars and workshops address current topics in the fashion industry such as digital transformation, smart clothing, technical textiles and sustainability.

30,000 visitors from more than 100 countries are expected at the upcoming IFCO, mainly from the EU, UK, Eastern Europe, CIS, North Africa, Middle East and the USA. The show also offers networking events, such as B2B Speed Dating, which brings together fashion designers, brands, manufacturers, buyers and industry experts to exchange ideas and forge potential business relationships. This is an important aspect of the fair that has helped to position Istanbul Fashion Connection as a key meeting place for the fashion industry.

Over 1.2 million people came together to Move For The Planet, a new global initiative by adidas that harnessed the collective activity of sporting communities across the world.

Over 173 million active minutes were tracked overall across countries in the adidas Running app with adidas pledging to donate €1 to Common Goal for every 10 minutes of activity logged across 34 sports between June 1-12 – up to €1.5m.

The contributions will support projects around the globe that educate and engage communities through sport. One such organisation selected by adidas and Common Goal is the ISF Cambodia (ISF), a charity with 16 years of experience using education and sport to change lives.

The specific project will enable the installation of solar panels to light their football fields – creating safer spaces for girls and the wider community to practice in whilst at the same time, using renewable energy.

In addition to the solar panels, together with Football for Future and Common Goal, adidas is facilitating education on environmental sustainability through sport for ISF with a focus on helping the organization to raise awareness of environmental action in the community.

This will complement ISF workshops on environmental protection, the use of single use-plastic and waste management processes, enabling the children and young adults involved to be positive role models for their community.

Move For The Planet is part of adidas’ wider sustainability initiatives as the company continues its mission to make what’s best for the athlete. Earlier this year, adidas announced that it is ahead of schedule in its journey to replace virgin polyester with recycled polyester in its products wherever possible by the end of 2024. In 2022, 96% of all the polyester adidas used was recycled.

As part of Sappi Europe's full scale decarbonisation roadmap, Gratkorn mill is expanding the share of biomass to be used as an energy source, further driving the move away from fossil fuels as part of the mill’s contribution to the European roadmap. The project follows the recent modernisation of the power plant boiler which enabled the shift from coal to a combined approach of biomass and natural gas.

The mill is now embarking on a next step, enhancing its infrastructure and therefore capacity in order to handle the delivery, sorting and processing of increased biomass levels. This increased utilisation requires an improved biomass handling system at the mill as well as decentralised intermediate storage terminals within the surrounding regions.

"With our long-standing competent wood sourcing partner Papierholz Austria, we will continue our journey to move away from fossil fuels at Gratkorn mill and work towards a climate-neutral future”, says Peter Putz, Managing Director of Sappi Austria GmbH.

For the near term, Sappi’s decarbonisation roadmap includes close to 80 projects being carried out across its European mills by 2025.

“Our 2025 roadmap identifies the path we have embarked on towards a carbon-neutral future,” explains Sarah Price, Director Sustainability of Sappi Europe. The objective is to reduce emissions of specific greenhouse gases (Scope 1 and 2) by 25 per cent and to increase the share of renewable energy in Europe to 50 per cent by 2025 (compared to 2019). Additionally, Sappi’s 2030 science-based target is to reduce carbon emissions by 41.5% per ton of product. “We’re already making good progress towards these targets, with a large number of projects already well-underway or completed”.

• Project from the Global Organic Textile Standard, European Space Agency and Marple will use AI and satellite imagery to detect organic versus non-organic cotton fields
• Innovative demonstrator project explores the potential of remote monitoring to strengthen integrity and development of organic cotton cultivation
• Project will run across India with first results expected by the end of 2023

In a world first, the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), European Space Agency (ESA) and AI company Marple have today launched a new demonstrator project that aims to show the potential for remote satellite monitoring of organic cotton cultivation systems.

The project, to be carried out under ESA’s Business Applications and Space Solutions (BASS) programme, will train artificial intelligence (AI) to use ESA satellite data to detect cotton fields across India and automatically classify them according to their cultivation standard. By integrating standardised yield metrics, this innovative approach will also enable GOTS to generate realistic estimates of organic cotton yields in specific areas.

Integrated with existing GOTS measures, this project will enable GOTS to further enhance the integrity of organic cotton by developing advanced risk assessment technology for organic certification and preventing fraud from the beginning of the supply chain. “It is an honour and very exciting to be a partner in this ESA Demonstration Project, and it is living up to our claim to be pioneers serving the sustainable textile sector to enable continuous improvement. Technologies like this will be a game changer regarding the integrity and promotion opportunities of organic cotton.” says Claudia Kersten, Managing Director of GOTS.

The project's anticipated impact extends beyond identifying certified organic cotton fields. It is expected to also empower GOTS to recognise cotton fields that have not yet obtained organic certification but possess the potential for a seamless transition to organic cultivation, thanks to their utilisation of traditional and ecologically friendly farming practices. This would enable GOTS to bring a greater number of farmers – particularly those of a smaller size – into the certified organic sector and supply chains, creating new economic opportunities for small-scale farmers and their communities while also helping the textile sector to meet growing consumer demand for organic cotton. Guillaume Prigent, Business Development and Partnerships Officer at the European Space Agency, adds: “This project highlights how space solutions can have a positive impact on the world and is the kind of innovation that ESA supports through its Business Applications and Space Solutions programme.”

The project will run across the distinct cotton growing regions in India, with first results expected by the end of 2023.

India project builds on successful Uzbekistan feasibility pilot
The project is co-financed by GOTS and ESA, in collaboration with Marple GmbH, a German software development firm that developed the CoCuRA (Cotton Cultivation Remote Assessment) software with ESA BASS and successfully piloted it in a feasibility project in 2021 in Uzbekistan.

That venture showed how the trained AI was able to accurately differentiate cotton fields from other crops using only satellite images and sensor data, as well as whether the cotton fields were cultivated organically.

This spurred considerable interest from GOTS, which has committed to the development of cutting-edge technologies that can improve the integrity of the organic textile sector, especially cotton. Dr David Scherf, co-founder of Marple, said: “All our projects strive to leverage advanced technology for a positive impact on the environment and society. We are therefore delighted that our CoCuRA technology, which emerged from a moonshot research project, is being applied in a practical and impactful way. We are excited about the opportunity to work with the exceptional team at GOTS and further strengthen our successful partnership with ESA.”

At ITMA 2023 in Milan from June 8-14, BTMA member VeriVide will introduce UltraView – its first all-LED light booth for achieving a new level of consistent and standardised colour assessment.

The company’s light booths and lighting cabinets are specified by major global retailers around the world, who rely on them for establishing and maintaining visual quality standards across their supply chains.

This is no easy feat, given the textile industry’s complex structure and the many process stages each individual garment undertakes from the designer’s desk to the finished garment on the retail shelf – often criss-crossing several continents during the journey.

Benefits
UltraView brings a range of sustainable new benefits to designers, mills and brands, and combined with VeriVide’s successful DigiEye system for non-contact colour measurement and digital imaging, can have a positive impact on a company’s bottom line, bringing savings in time, money and CO₂ emissions.

The new all-LED light booth meets all relevant international lighting and colour assessment standards. The UltraView incorporates the company’s A rated CIE D65 and CIE D50 artificial daylight light sources and includes multiple pre-set point of sale light sources while being fully tuneable for recalibration to the individual requirements of each customer. In the past, individual light booths have had to be dedicated to the stipulated settings of each specific customer’s switch sets. The rapid flexibility of UltraView, however, makes the need for multiple light booths a thing of the past.

It also eliminates the need for the regular bulb changes that were necessary with fluorescents, to provide significant energy savings.

As supply chains continue to move towards digitisation away from time-consuming and expensive physical sampling, a version of the UltraView, VisionView, is available with an internal monitor to enable physical samples to be compared with their digital versions, if required.

DigiEye
For non-contact colour measurement and digital imaging, VeriVide’s DigiEye collects and processes data that can be communicated and shared instantly, enabling manufacturers, producers and processors to speed up quality control, sustain product integrity and reduce waste.

DigiEye also overcomes the limitations of spectrophotometers, which are limited to products with a solid colour appearance and can only measure ‘average’ colour, assessing the limited area of the product exposed in the instrument’s aperture.

These limitations are further compounded if the product has any form of multi-coloured characteristics or appearance, an uneven or inconsistent surface, a colour area too small to be captured by the instrument or any sort of surface effect, such as carpet pile and the sheen of satin and silk.

The 14th in-store asia will be held in Mumbai from 1 June to 3 June 2023. The trade exhibition for retail resources and investment in store design, VM and in-store marketing gathers decision-makers from more than 7,500 retail companies, consultants, service providers, and manufacturers, bringing together over 100 exhibitors.

Since 2018, in-store asia has been a member of the international trade fair family of EuroShop in Düsseldorf. It assembles all leading retail solutions providers from India and other countries under one roof. Here decision-makers from retail, including branded product producers, retail consultants as well as providers of services and solutions for retail, store designers, architects and VM experts come together.

The 3-day event includes not only the Expo area but also a wide range of side events comprising a Convention with over 30 speakers, the presentation of the coveted VM & RD Retail Design Awards as well as the VM Challenge, a live shop window challenge for top-notch visual merchandisers that is unique for India. Furthermore, the Retail Technology Pavilion will present new tools, for instance for retail management and customer tracking as well as solutions revolving around AI & virtual reality, NFTs, smart checkout all the way down to store management, retail security and payment. Celebrating a premiere here will be the Start-up Hub, which will provide emerging, innovative companies with a stage to present themselves to the industry.

The Indian retail industry has changed drastically; being one of the fastest growing retail markets it has proven a key driver for the Indian economy. The Indian retail sector is forecast to continue posting enormous growth rates due to such factors as growing urbanisation, rising household incomes, better connected rural consumers and rising consumer spending.

From April 25^th to 27^th, 2023, the Institute of Textile Machinery and High Performance Material Technology (ITM) of TU Dresden will be exhibiting at the pavilion SAXONY! at JEC World 2023.

The ITM will provide a comprehensive overview of its current research in the field of machine and product development along the entire textile process chain.

The upcoming JEC 2023 exhibition will highlight innovative Customised Connective Cores (CCC), which are custom-made core-insert structures additively manufactured using cellular metal and a form-fit integrated insert. These CCCs can be seamless integrated either as patches or as full-surface core material into lightweight panels, offering significantly improved load-bearing behavior (especially 4 times the load-bearing capacity and fail-safe behavior) compared to existing technologies. This breakthrough opens up new possibilities for fastening lightweight panels.

Another highlight at the exhibition is the repair process for fibre-reinforced composites (FRP) developed at the ITM. Instead of mechanically grinding the damaged area, the matrix in the repair area is locally dissolved using a UV-rays-induced depolymerisation process. Damaged fibres can thus be replaced by a customized repair patch. Free yarn ends on the textile repair patches are spliced with the UV-exposed yarn ends in the repair area using an adapted splicing process. In this way, a very clean, simplified and mechanically improved repair area can be achieved compared to the state of the art.

The diverse possibilities offered by the structure and process simulation of textile high-performance materials and textile manufacturing processes will also be presented. By means of multi-scale modelling and simulation, a profound understanding of materials and processes is achieved at the ITM. Finite element models on the micro, meso and macro scale have been developed and validated for this purpose. Examples from current ITM research projects demonstrate the various possibilities and areas of application of modern simulation methods in the field of textile technology.

Moreover, an innovative process for the integral manufacturing of 3D rib-stiffened preforms with complexly arranged stiffeners in 0°, 90° and ± 45° orientation was developed and successfully implemented at the ITM. Due to the process-integrated structure fixation and the continuous fibre reinforcement between shell and rib structure, the 3D preforms are perfectly suited for the production of highly load-bearing FRP components with increased bending stiffness, which will be exhibited at JEC. Hence, the lightweight construction potential of high-performance fibres can be fully exploited.

A successfully established development are partially flowable 2D textile reinforcement fabrics that are continuously manufactured in one single process step. For this purpose, the entire process chain was developed at the ITM, which allows a cost-effective and high-volume production of load-bearing thermoplastic 3D FRP components with continuous fibre reinforcement between shell and stiffeners.

At JEC 2023, the ITM will also present a partially embedded textile latice girder as reinforcement for carbon concrete applications, which was produced by means of an innovative textile manufacturing process based on the multiaxial warp knitting technology. Through the development of a customized warp insertion, manipulation and take-off system as well as appropriate shaping methods, it is now possible to produce tailored textile semi-finished products, e.g. for use in wall and ceiling panels. These textile latice girders represent a resource-saving alternative to conventional steel girders due to the reduced among of concrete required and the additional cavity for media and cable guidance.

The integration of textile actuators and sensors in FRP provides structures with additional functionalities. The research and application of such interactive FRP with different matrix materials (e.g. with thermoset, elastomer or concrete matrix systems) for structural health monitoring or adaptive systems is one of the key research areas of the ITM.

Moreover, the development and implementation of innovative yarn constructions based on recycled high-performance fibres (e.g. rCF, rGF, rAR) for sustainable FRPs is successfully promoted at ITM. By use of a special carding machine, recycled fibres are opened up, separated and joined to form a wide, uniform ribbon. Subsequently, innovative hybrid yarn constructions made of evenly mixed recycled high-performance and thermoplastic fibres with variable fibre volume fractions can be manufactured by means of various spinning technologies. Selected yarn constructions and components will be showcased at JEC.

On 30 March 2022, the European Commission presented its vision for the future of the textile industry. The strategy mainly focuses on reducing the environmental footprint and promote sustainability and transparency in the value chain.

EURATEX has welcomed the publication of the strategy, as it recognises the strategic importance of the European textile industry, and its core competitive values of quality and creativity. At the same time, the association has warned that translating that vision into reality is a delicate process, as the industry needs to reconcile sustainability with competitiveness. Making the green (and digital) transition should make companies stronger; the benefits should outweigh the costs.

This premise had a serious blow by the Russian war in Ukraine, which erupted at almost the same time when the strategy was launched, and has dramatically changed the economic context. Energy prices increased by a factor of 10 (!), putting the European industry at a significant disadvantage with its global competitors, leading to company shutdowns or relocations. Extended lock downs in China and defensive trade policies in the US and elsewhere have further generated uncertainty on the market and disrupted supply chains.

Today, one year after its publication, EURATEX remains carefully optimistic about the implementation of the strategy, but needs to warn against some important pitfalls on the road ahead.

1. Despite these turbulent times, the Commission is moving ahead “swiftly” in translating their EU Textile Strategy into (draft) legislation. At present, at least 16 pieces of legislation are on the table, which will turn the textile industry into a strictly regulated sector. The quality of this new regulatory framework is critical to the success of the strategy: upcoming rules need to be coherent, technically feasible and enforceable, and have a minimal cost for SMEs. EURATEX calls for a realistic timetable and “competitiveness test” for each piece of legislation before it is adopted.
2. Textile companies need to be informed and supported to comply with this new framework. This requires substantial funding which should be earmarked exclusively to the sector, covering areas of innovation and digitalisation, skills development, support to start ups and internationalisation, as well as access to affordable energy. In this regard, EURATEX calls on the Commission to translate the current “good intentions” into concrete decisions.
3. The EU strategy will not work if there is no demand for sustainable textiles, both from individual consumers and public authorities (procurement). Concrete measures need to be taken to offer a competitive advantage to sustainable and high quality textile products, e.g. through a different VAT rate, strict procurement rules, closer cooperation between the brands/retailers, producers and consumers.
4. The EU strategy could also fail, if the global dimension of the textile industry is ignored. Up to 80% of clothing products are produced outside the EU; these products need to comply with the new framework, but it remains unclear how to ensure that level playing field. Market surveillance needs to be stepped up massively – also targeting on line sales – but this would require significant efforts from member states, which are not available as of today.

Despite these important challenges, EURATEX remains committed to the successful implementation of the EU Textile Strategy. Director General Dirk Vantyghem commented: “We want to be a global leader in sustainable textiles, building on the entrepreneurship, quality and creativity of nearly 150,000 European textile companies. Creating this new framework is an incredible challenge, requiring a close dialogue between the industry and the regulator. But if well designed and carefully implemented, it can set a new era for the European textile industry”.

• TreeToTextile sustainable textile fibre demo plant in Sweden

TreeToTextile, owned by H&M Group, Inter IKEA Group, Stora Enso, and LSCS Invest, invested €35 million in constructing a textile fiber process technology demonstration plant in Sweden. AFRY supported TreeToTextile throughout the project in the development and implementation phases from 2016-2022. The demonstration plant is now in the start-up phase.

TreeToTextile is offering a new technology to produce bio-based textile fibers with a low environmental footprint and aims to make sustainable textile fibers available to all. The new fiber is a regenerated cellulosic fiber, produced from renewable and sustainably sourced raw materials from forests. TreeToTextile has invested €35 million in developing and constructing a new demonstration plant in Nymölla, Sweden. This investment is a crucial step prior to the scale-up and commercialization of this technology.

AFRY has been the leading consultant and engineering partner of TreeToTextile from its early stages of project development in 2016, continuing onto demo plant implementation engineering from 2020-2022 In the project development phase, AFRY’s assignment included several pre-feasibility and feasibility studies, process design, up-scaling evaluations, and supplier pilot runs planning. In the demo plant implementation phase, AFRY was responsible for the engineering, project management and site services, also providing many additional services like permit and procurement support as well as machine and IT solutions.

“AFRY and TreeToTextile have a long-lasting, mutually developing relationship that we hope to continue. Together with AFRY, we have overcome the challenges through close collaboration, flexibility, broad competence and most important of all, mutual commitment”, says Olli Ylä-Jarkko, CTO at TreeToTextile.

The commissioning of the demonstration plant started in the summer of 2022, and the project was handed over to TreeToTextile for start-up and further optimization of the process.

“I’m proud of the deep and long-lasting cooperation with TreeToTextile. This project shows AFRY’s ability and wide competence to meet various demands of customer investment projects – from early phase development to implementation. AFRY’s long experience with bio-based materials, combined with our extensive process industry and project execution experience, makes us a unique partner for industrial clients in accelerating their bio-based fibers to scalable commercial production”, says Lisa Vedin, Head of Process Industries Sweden at AFRY.