Textile ETP at ADD International Textile Conference
On 28 November, our Secretary General Lutz Walter took part in the 2025 Aachen-Dresden-Denkendorf International Textile Conference, one of Europe’s leading textile research events. The conference, held in Aachen and organised by DWI – Interactive Materials Research with the support of FKT, Textil+Mode, and VDMA Textile Machinery, gathered experts from across academia and industry for two days of discussions on sustainable textiles, circular economy, biobased and high-performance fibres, smart textiles, and robotics.
Lutz moderated the plenary session “Durable or Disposable? Fashion’s Sustainability Dilemma”, exploring how EU textile sustainability regulation and its national implementation will drive the need for new technologies and business models to turn textile circularity into reality. The panel brought together Vincenzo Gente from the European Commission, Henning Wins from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and Maike Rabe from Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences.
The panellists agreed that textiles are not meant to be disposable and must be designed, produced and marketed for long-term use. Yet even the most durable products eventually reach end of life, and better alternatives to landfill or incineration are essential. This makes efficient systems for separate collection, sorting, repair and recycling crucial, and requires regulators, researchers, designers, technologists and industry innovators to work together toward a true systemic shift. At the same time, business models that drive fast consumption, poor-quality products or superficial green claims should be discouraged.
Beyond the scientific insights, the ADD International Textile Conference remains a valuable forum for networking and exchanging future ideas in person. Those who missed the 2025 edition in Aachen should already save the last week of November 2026, when the next conference will be hosted by ITM – TU Dresden in Dresden.
