The Luxembourg-based company helps reshape Europe’s textile future by embedding circular data into every fabric’s journey — from design to recycling.
Luxembourg takes center stage in Europe’s textile transition, with Terra Matters playing a pivotal role. As a key partner of the €7 million Horizon Europe project TRUSTex, Terra Matters brings its expertise in digital product data to reshape textile waste management and accelerate circular economy innovation.
From January 2025, the European Union mandates the separate collection of textiles. To support this shift, the Horizon Europe project TRUSTex was launched earlier this year. With a budget of €7 million over 36 months, the initiative unites 19 partners across 11 countries – from research centers to universities, SMEs, NGOs, and industrial actors – all working towards scalable circular solutions.
For Luxembourg, TRUSTex showcases the country’s growing influence in sustainable innovation. Indeed, three national players are involved: Terra Matters, LIST, and Luxembourg Media & Digital Design Centre (LMDDC). Among them, Terra Matters stands out for its leadership in digitalization, providing the backbone for data traceability and transparency.
Terra Matters at the heart of digital product passports
Within this European consortium, Terra Matters is spearheading the development of the Digital Product Passport (DPP) for textiles. Required under the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the DPP is a crucial tool designed to embed environmental and circularity information across a product’s lifecycle.
According to Laetitia Georgel, Circular Economy Project Leader at Terra Matters, the company’s mission is to make sure textile products can be tracked by getting data from their design to their end-of-life. By embedding reliable circularity information into digital passports, Terra Matters enables more reuse, repair, and recycling, while reducing the risk of textiles being discarded as waste.
Innovations tested by TRUSTex
Over three years, TRUSTex will experiment with multiple solutions, where Terra Matters’
digital infrastructure acts as a cornerstone:
- Digital Product Passport systems for transparency and traceability
- Advanced sorting and disassembly technologies to facilitate reuse and recycling
- Eco-design strategies integrating circularity from the design stage
- Evidence-based policy recommendations for Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) implementation
The project will also address global challenges, such as textile exports to Africa, where transparency and traceability remain limited. Terra Matters’ expertise ensures that the data dimension of these flows is better understood and managed.
A milestone for Luxembourg
Alongside Terra Matters, LIST provides scientific coordination while LMDDC ensures outreach and education. Together, the three partners position Luxembourg as a hub for sustainable innovation in Europe.
As Laetitia Georgel underlines, circularity in textiles is quickly becoming both a regulatory requirement and a market necessity. Through TRUSTex, Terra Matters demonstrates how digital innovation can enable real circular transformation in the textile industry.
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