WHAT’S INSIDE
Top stories and what you’ll find in our newsletter this month:
● Your answers to our TechStyle survey will help deliver the best AI for circularity curriculum
● Read an important new study on the destruction of unsold consumer products to support the implementation of the ESPR.
In Italy, two very different companies take responsibility for their supply chain – only one voluntarily.
OUR PROJECTS
TECHSTYLE
TechStyle is a new Erasmus+ project, in which Cedecs-TCBL is partner, that will develop an online curriculum on how to best use AI as tools to enhance circularity in the Textile & Fashion sector. To make the course on-point, we kindly ask you to answer a short survey about your perceptions and needs with regards to AI tools. If you’re in the T&C business in any way – student to actor, expert or manager – and if you are based in France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden or Turkey, your answers will be most valuable.
Please complete the survey in French or in English.
VETRINE
Meet FashPass, a tool developed by the VETRINE project (Erasmus+). Essentially a Digital Product Passport, it is being used in the context of the project as a showcase for the creative works that participants made during their real-life experience designing a new product for mentor companies. Students learned about DPP fields, and the public will be able to vote their favourite projects via the app.
Please join us on Monday March 16 at 11am CET for the online launch event – find all the information on the website vetrine.eu.
TCBL MEMBER NEWS
New lab member: NOVA
The TCBL Association welcomes the Laboratory for Heritage Materials and Colour Analysis at NOVA School for Science and Technology in Caparica, Portugal, represented by Paula Nabais. Their cultural-heritage research finds innovative and sustainable methods to interpret, reconstruct and scientifically validate historical technologies – especially natural dyes and their formulations – and to assess their stability and interaction with materials, such as textile fibres.
Log in to your TCBL account to see their full profile here.
Call for Makers
TCBL Lab Center Rog in Ljubljana invites makers, designers, innovators, and engineers to collectively respond to one of the most tangible consequences of global warming: the overheating of urban environments. Participants, whose expenses are all paid, will work through hands-on, collaborative design-and-build processes to develop a shading structure for the future community café. The residency runs from from the end of May to the beginning of June 2026 and the deadline to apply is March 8. Apply here.
WHAT WE’RE READING
- The Joint Research Centre of the EC has published a study on the destruction of unsold consumer products to support the implementation of the ESPR. The paper provides two tools to support the EC’s regulatory action: an environmental impact assessment framework enables life cycle-based analysis of unsold goods destruction, and a methodological tool supports the assessment of the net benefit of a ban.
- The book Upcycling Research with Global Perspectives on Fashion, Products, by Kyungeun Sung & Richie Moalosi, explores upcycling as design, business and social practice. It explores the practise from every angle, with fascinating case studies, business models, and tips for incorporating it into educational programs. The book is available in Open Access.
- Italian companies are taking responsibility – or being forced to do so – for the actions of their suppliers. Prada has terminated its relationship with more than 200 suppliers for compliance breaches in response to allegations of labour abuse in the industry’s supply chain. While Italy’s luxury industry has been under scrutiny for a while, a first this month is the prosecution of the low-cost brand Piazza Italia which has been found to outsource most of their production to two Chinese companies in Prato who exploited workers. The Chinese entrepreneurs are under investigation for illegal intermediation and labour exploitation while the parent company is being held responsible for “culpable intertia”.
- This is an inspiring interview with Regina Polanco of PYRATEX after her recent win of the Premio Mujeres a Seguir 2025 in the entrepreneurship category. The daughter of diplomats, she grew up in Mauritiana, later studied law, and creates functional fabrics from natural sources like Sargassum seaweed, always seeking scaleable bio-based waste products.
- As we’re thinking about AI-driven education, the manifesto on AI by Spain’s IE University was ahead of the game in 2023 and remains a helpful guideline. They emphasize that it is not about replacing teachers with chatbots or compressing curricula into shorter time slots. It’s about creating environments where students can plan, manage, and reflect on complex learning processes; where effort and consistency become visible; where mistakes are safe; and where feedback is constant but respectful. AI should support experimentation, not enforce compliance.
- Benin, West Africa’s top cotton producer, completes its supply chain. The country produces 600,000 tonnes annually and is expanding its textile industry in the Glo-Djigbé Special Economic Zone near Cotonou. The GDIZ, launched in partnership with Arise IIP and the Beninese government in 2022, employs over 15,000 people, and 3,000 in garment manufacturing for global brands. The zone aims to create 300,000 direct jobs by 2030 and significantly boost local cotton processing, which has grown from zero to nearly 13%. However, achieving 100% local processing will require 28 more factories, while foreign investment remains limited due to concerns about competition and risk. (Read on Le Monde, paywall removed).
- There is, apparently, a gender gap in the use of AI. Harvard Business School associate professor Rembrand Koning synthesized data from 18 studies covering more than 140,000 individuals across the world and found that women are about 20% less likely than men to directly engage with the AI technology, which can be explained by several factors: the gender gap in tech and also fear for data security, loss of control of their job or career, and environmental concerns. Read the working paper.
AGENDA
CREDITS
Editors: Alexandra Korey, Frédérique Thureau, Jean-Renaud Cuaz
Photos: Project photos and TCBL Member News photos © TCBL Association
Copyright: Online programming © 2026 Audasud
