To build a sustainable textile industry, India needs to invest in new products, build scale of operations, and improve competitiveness.

So say FICCI-Wazir Advisors in the annual conference TAG. The industry should also align with global buyer needs, value chain traceability and provide end to end services. Other measures include a focus on automation and digitalization to improve processes and efficiency levels, a focus on people and skill development, leveraging free trade agreements to tap new markets, developing capabilities and building capacities in synthetic textiles and technical textiles and adopting global best practices for manufacturing excellence.

Already the textile industry in India is shifting gears from linear to circular operations. Manufacturers are making concerted efforts to introduce sustainability by using innovative materials, safe dyes, reducing water and energy consumption, treating waste material and ensuring a greater focus on reducing, reusing and recycling, ensuring that both pre-consumer and post-consumer waste are controlled.

Zero Liquid Discharge, for instance, is a wastewater treatment process that removes all liquid discharge from a system. Apart from prioritising organic fabrics, the focus of the sector is all about conserving the natural environment. Other projects, like processing PET bottles to make recycled polyester fibers, are also underway. This has triggered the movement towards slow fashion that works on a‘fit-to-demand’ model, reducing surplus and investing in garments that have a long life.