Worn to Last: Designing Circular Fashion
TRUSTex Agora · Founding session · Online
Who pays for the clothes we discard, and what should the fee reward?
- Date: Thursday 5 November 2026, 14:00 to 17:30 CET
- Format: Online, in partnership with the European Economic and Social Committee
- Co-hosted by: Saskia Bricmont MEP and Delara Burkhardt MEP
- Organised by: TRUSTex with Generation Climate Europe
Objectives
How should the new European fee on clothing be designed so that it rewards garments that last? By 17 April 2028, every Member State must operate an extended producer responsibility scheme for textiles under Directive (EU) 2025/1892, with fees modulated according to the environmental performance of products. The criteria are being written now, in 27 capitals, and the choices made in the coming months will shape what is produced, what is collected and what is sorted, reused or exported for years to come.
Organised by the Horizon Europe project TRUSTex with Generation Climate Europe, in partnership with the European Economic and Social Committee and co-hosted by two Members of the European Parliament, this afternoon brings together the people preparing the rules and the people who live with their effects: the European Commission, the European textile industry, collectors and sorters working under existing schemes, researchers on garment durability and on the social cost of discarded clothing, young Europeans, and the traders of Kantamanto market in Accra. It asks one question in two parts: where does the value chain break today, and what should the fee reward?
This session is the first TRUSTex Agora. In the Greek city the agora was the open square where citizens met to debate the matters that concerned them all before the assembly decided; the TRUSTex Agora revives that space for the textile transition, as a place where anyone who buys, wears, repairs or discards clothing can put a question to those preparing the rules and have it answered on record. Five further Agoras follow in 2027, each on a different question of the transition, and every participant of this session is invited to the next.
Programme
| Time (CET) | Session |
|---|---|
| 13:45 | Broadcast opens Connection details are sent to registrants on Monday 2 November. |
| 14:00 | Welcome Anders Ladefoged, Member of the European Economic and Social Committee, Member of the Steering Group of the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform Topic: why the Committee, the Union’s house of organised civil society, hosts this question. |
| 14:10 | Opening Saskia Bricmont, Member of the European Parliament, co-host Topic: what the Parliament expects from the national schemes due in April 2028. |
| 14:20 | Youth voice Olivia Yakunina, Project Lead on Textiles, Generation Climate Europe Topic: what a generation that buys, swaps and discards asks of the fee. |
| 14:30 | Panel 1. Where the value chain breaks: who bears the cost today Mariana Silva, UCD College of Business, Dublin: social impacts at the end of life of our clothes, in Europe and beyond Martin Boeschen, CEO, TEXAID Schweiz AG, member of the TRUSTex Advisory Board: which product attributes change sorting yield and export share today, and which of them a fee could reward Charles Graft, CEO Sympany, Utrecht, collector and sorter under the Dutch scheme: what a collector sees under a working scheme, three years in Moderator: Milena Amaral, NEOVILI, TRUSTex Guiding questions: where do Europe’s used clothes go; who pays for sorting what cannot be worn again; what does a trader in Nairobi or Accra receive when a bale is opened. |
| 15:20 | Break |
| 15:30 | Panel 2. What should the fee reward? Introduction: where the TRUSTex work on eco modulation stands (5 min). Vincenzo Gente, European Commission, Directorate-General for Environment Gerrard Fisher, Co-founder, WEFT Limited, United Kingdom: what data a scheme needs before it can reward durability Anaïs De Bergeyck, Euratex, the European Apparel and Textile Confederation Moderator: Milena Amaral, NEOVILI, TRUSTex Guiding questions: which design criteria can a scheme measure today; how large must the fee differential be to change a design decision; how do 27 schemes avoid 27 sets of rules. |
| 16:20 | Civil society voice, from Kantamanto market, Accra Liz Ricketts, Executive Director, The Or Foundation A retailer of Kantamanto market, name to be announced Topic: opened by a one minute film by The Or Foundation; the question Kantamanto puts to the people writing the criteria for the fee. |
| 16:35 | Agora: the floor to the participants A live poll, then an open microphone: one minute per voice, hands raised on Zoom, the chat collected by a co-moderator from Generation Climate Europe. Questions put to the assembly: should the fee reward how long a garment lasts, how easily it is repaired, or how easily it is recycled; would you pay more for a garment with a lower fee; what should the fee money pay for first. |
| 17:05 | Synthesis Milena Amaral, NEOVILI, TRUSTex Topic: what the afternoon says to the people writing the criteria, and where the Agora meets next. |
| 17:10 | Closing remarks Delara Burkhardt, Member of the European Parliament, co-host |
| 17:20 | End of broadcast |
How to take part
Registration. Free, at luma.com/u2pcb7im. Zoom link: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89180986559?pwd=jQM7lXKhoPaY1wqNzvflewotKq8W8n.1
Questions. In writing through the Zoom chat at any time, or by raising a hand during the Agora at 16:35.
Language and recording. The session is in English and is recorded. The recording, the glossary and the written conclusions are published on trustexproject.eu after the event.
Where the Agora continues. The conclusions are transmitted to the European Economic and Social Committee. The next Agora sessions take place in 2027; dates and cities are announced on trustexproject.eu.
Co-funded by the European Union and by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Executive Agency (REA), the granting authority or Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. Grant agreement 101181901.