During the EU Fashion Match 8.0 on January 20th, the KVK Netherlands Chamber of Commerce and its partners emphasised the importance of making the fashion and textiles sector more sustainable. An inspiration session was organised around the statement: "Clothing without (environmentally) harmful materials is feasible, but is it also scalable?" On the basis of a number of inspiring examples, issues were addressed in the area of processing raw materials into usable yarn, using residues from the agricultural sector and how to grow from experiment to the market.
In a smaller group, the Fibersort technology was used as an example of these practices within the fashion and textiles sector. Participants were encouraged to give their ideas on how to tackle the challenges around the scalability of the technology. After a short presentation, participants were invited to explore the potential ways to break the chicken-and-egg situation of a new technology struggling to find uptake for newly introduced products. Measures identified were in line with the current project's focus: a trading platform for Fibersorted materials, financial incentives through policy changes (eg EPR) and the mapping of all potential recyclers to source Fibersorted materials.
