The OECD highlights the Green Transition of Portugal’s Textile Industry
- Valerie Charoux
- Sep 30
- 3 min read
Green News Europe - The OECD highlights how Portugal’s Textile Industry is managing its Green Transition in a report dated September 26th, 2025, by Marco Marchese from the OECD and António Braz Costa from CITEVE and CeNTI. Here is how Portugal’s Textile Industry is managing its Green Transition:
1 – Why is the Green Transition of the textile industry essential?
From fields to fast fashion, the journey of a single T-shirt can leave behind a trail of environmental damage:
Producing just one pair of jeans uses up to around 7,500 liters of water, that is equal to the amount one person drinks over seven years.
Moreover, synthetic fibers shed tiny plastic particles, adding to the estimated half a million tons of microplastics entering the oceans each year.
The global textile and clothing industry also accounts for about 10% of carbon emissions and 20% of wastewater, according to the OECD report “The green transition of SMEs: A tale from Portugal’s textile and clothing industry”.
2 - What is the importance of Portugal’s textile industry in the context of the EU?
As the fashion cycle accelerates, so too does the environmental footprint of the global textile industry and the need to manage the sector’s green transition.
Portugal has a large textile industry with around 12,000 companies employing around 132,000 employees in 2022. Portugal’s textile industry generates a turnover of around EUR 8.86 billion, out of which 70% is for the export market.
Portugal’s textile industry is also significant at EU level, since it generates 10% of the EU’s Textile and Clothing jobs and 5% of the sector’s turnover in the EU.
3 - How is Portugal’s Textile Industry managing its Green Transition?
Portugal is transitioning towards green textile products, from the development of bio-based materials to better water management, as well as decarbonization, and circularity, under the technical coordination of CITEVE, the Portuguese Tech center for Textile and Clothing industries.
This is how Portugal is managing the Green Transition of Textile and Clothing Industry in 2025:
1 - Portugal stands out for its innovative investments in eco-friendly materials, including forestry byproducts where cellulose is extracted from trees and is transformed into biodegradable fibres like lyocell, that is a strong and versatile alternative to synthetic materials.
Other Portuguese green innovations in the textile industry include recycling agricultural waste such as corn husks, grape skins, and other organic waste to produce natural fibres and dyes.
2 - Portugal’s Ocean economy now includes algae-based textiles, which use algae to create biodegradable fabrics, that is another important innovation to reduce reliance on petroleum-based products.
3 - IT and automation developments in Portugal’s textile industry have also introduced breakthrough technologies and innovations such as The Digital Product Passport (DPP).
IT technologies allow for managing closed-loop water systems that capture, treat, and recycle water used in production processes, thus significantly reducing water consumption and discharge. Textile companies are investing in rainwater collection systems to supplement water supplies and deploying innovative polymer particles that cut water and energy use during the dyeing process.
4 - Portugal’s textile industry is also taking advantage of the fact that the country has one of the highest rates of renewable electricity production in the world, and many factories have installed their own solar, wind and biomass systems to power operations, while machinery upgrading is helping manufacturers lower their carbon footprint by reducing energy consumption.
5 - Sustainability is high on the agenda and Portugal has emerged as a hub for circular fashion. In Portugal’s northern region, where nearly 90% of the country’s Textile industry is concentrated, several companies are recycling industrial waste and discarded garments into high-quality secondary raw materials.
As Portugal illustrates, the green transition of the Textile industry is not only a climate imperative but also a business opportunity to innovate production, secure local jobs through SMEs, and to capture a larger share of the growing global demand for sustainable fashion.
