Techtextil and Texprocess, the leading trade fairs for technical textiles and nonwovens, will explicitly turn their focus for the first time onto their exhibitors’ approaches to sustainability. The textile innovation duo to be held between May 14 and 17 in Germany will showcase textile materials and technologies that cover the entire textile value chain.
Taking ‘Towards sustainability’ as its motto, the Techtextil Forum will provide a series of contributions devoted exclusively to sustainable textile innovations. Chaired by Braz Costa, managing director of the Portuguese technology centre CITEVE, among the topics on the programme will be textile recycling (TWD Fibres, Velener Textil), sustainable construction with wool (Minet S.A., Romania), sustainable textile coatings (Centexbel), biopolymers (RWTH Aachen University), traceability of GMO-free cotton (Hohenstein Institute) and low-cost, bio-based carbon fibres (Jules Verne Research Institute, France), organiser Messe Frankfurt said in a press release.
The forum will be devoted exclusively to the theme of sustainability in the textile and fashion industries in all its aspects. The first keynote, ‘Sustainable innovation – a matter of survival’ will come from Micke Magnusson, co-founder of the Swedish start-up We are Spindye. Next, posing the question “Is Sustainability the Key to Textile Innovations?”, will come a discussion by leaders in the industry such as Clariant Plastics and Coatings, Indorama, Lenzing, Perpetual Global, Procalçado S.A., Kering und Zalando.
For the first time the Techtextil Innovation Award will be presented to two firms in the category of sustainability. The winners will be announced and the awards presented on the first day of the fair during the opening ceremony.
In 2017, Techtextil and Texprocess welcomed a total of 1,789 exhibitors from 66 countries and over 47,500 visitors from 114 countries. At the coming event, over 1,800 exhibitors from a total of over 60 countries and more than 47,500 visitors from more than 100 nations are expected.
