The national action plan for textiles is a proposal from DM&T (Dansk Mode&Textil), where we propose that the political parties allocate resources and focus on supporting the transformation of the industry. We believe that we can help lift the transformation of the industry by making the political level aware of some of the barriers that the industry and our members encounter. And, at the same time, highlighting the positions of strength that exist in the Danish industry. This requires that resources be allocated to the industry, which can help support the system change that the industry is facing. Whether it concerns mapping, research, new technology or support for small and medium-sized businesses.
As the Danish business association for fashion and textile companies in Denmark, we have approximately 500 members and our members span a diverse group of companies producing everything from workwear, housing textiles, carpets, medico, fashion, sports- and children’s wear. Some of our members are big, but the far majority of our members are micro, small and medium-sized companies. Our raison d’être is to safeguard the interests of the Danish fashion and textile industry and provide the best possible services to our members.
The action plan consists of a total of 17 different initiatives, grouped into 5 sections or themes: knowledge; consumer behaviour and education; support to small and medium-sized companies; enforcement, and political initiatives, such as green public procurement. The initiatives have been identified and developed over the last year in close dialogue with our members, but also with other key actors in the textiles ecosystem, innovators, researchers, entrepreneurs etc. The initiatives must be seen as a catalogue of ideas for the political level, which they can subsequently work on and select which areas should be prioritized. The initiatives have therefore not been laid out down to the smallest detail, as that work will continue later.
The action plan supports the EU’s textile strategy and points to the initiatives that will help the Danish industry prepare for the upcoming legislation. A national action plan for textiles must be seen as a supplement and a ”buffer” against political proposals on national legislation, which will be a barrier to the harmonisation of legislation across EU countries.
We feel that there is a lack of coordination across the existing initiatives in the industry. There are many initiatives and projects on different scales across the industry, and it can therefore be difficult to identify which projects reflect Danish positions of strength or meet the most significant barriers. There is therefore a need to create an overview of the direction in which the industry is going and which areas of action should be prioritized. A national action plan must support this. Initiatives such as the Voluntary Sector Cooperation for Textiles is one of the projects that we believe should be further supported, as it helps to commit the industry to a number of ambitious circular goals and requires cooperation and knowledge sharing across the industry.
So far, we have received very positive feedback both from politicians and other stakeholders. We are currently trying to bring the proposal into play in upcoming relevant political negotiations, but there is no guarantee that the proposal will be adopted. However, we feel this is very important and will continue to push for the overall action plan and individual initiatives. The Danish fashion and textile industry is an important contributor to the Danish society and economy by contributing to approximately 100.000 jobs and Denmark and 4% of the GNP.
On October 9 we have our annual summit, including an exciting session on sustainability, which I look forward to a lot. The focus of the session will be the need for innovation and creativity. The industry is currently in a transformation process, the individual company faces many barriers in the system change, including high complexity and increased compliance requirements combined with a lack of reward and demand from consumers and customers. At the same time, the circular ecosystem is immature, we lack knowledge and technological solutions. Last but not least, the companies are under financial pressure, and giants such as Temu and Shein are gaining ground. So, with this somewhat gloomy outlook — how do we turn this situation to our advantage? Can we do it? Where is the innovation potential of Danish companies to meet this challenge? What does it take? This is a highly interesting topic that we have invited a number of great people to speak about.
The change is difficult and challenging because it is a system change. The industry is facing a complete transformation and a system change and we need to get all stakeholders and layers of society to collaborate in order to drive the change: authorities, industry, researchers, and citizens. This we have tried to reflect in the action plan, working with a holistic approach, and I’m excited to follow the next steps in the process!
