From fibre to future: Weaving sustainability into India's textile growth

As India targets a $350 billion textile and apparel industry by 2030, sustainability is shifting from the margins to the centre of its competitiveness strategy. For a sector spanning fibre, yarn, fabric, processing, apparel, technical textiles and made-ups, sustainability is increasingly becoming a question of competitiveness, market access and responsible growth.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “The world is adopting the vision of Fashion for Environment and Empowerment, and India can lead the way in this regard,” he pointed to a transformation that is increasingly visible across India’s textile landscape.

The textile sector is a major employment engine, directly supporting over 49 million livelihoods. Its domestic market is valued at about $196 billion and is projected to reach $250 billion by 2030, while India is targeting $100 billion in textile exports by the same year.

The Ministry of Textiles’ sustainability agenda reflects this dual reality. It is built around a simple proposition: India should not have to choose between growth and sustainability. Instead, cleaner production, resource efficiency, circularity and responsible manufacturing are set to become the foundation of the textile sector’s next growth chapter.

Global brands are setting increasingly ambitious sustainability targets for their supply chains. Consumers are showing greater interest in reused, repaired and recycled products, while policymakers in major export markets are introducing requirements related to environmental performance, recycled content, traceability, chemicals, water and energy use. India’s climate commitments — including 500 GW of non-fossil energy capacity, 50 per cent of energy requirements from renewables and net zero emissions by 2070 — are also steering the textile sector towards a low-carbon growth trajectory. For Indian exporters, sustainability is therefore moving beyond a peripheral compliance issue and becoming an integral part of industrial competitiveness.

India also starts from a position of strength, with a large manufacturing base, diverse raw materials, technical capabilities, an established recycling and reuse ecosystem, a growing start-up landscape and a wide network of clusters, research institutions and industry associations. Circularity is not entirely new to India. Traditions such as rafugari, kantha, godhadis, chindi durries and khesh weaving have embedded repair, reuse and repurposing in communities for generations. India’s hosting of the World Circular Economy Forum 2026 further reflects this larger shift, bringing together governments, industry, innovators and experts together to turn ideas into partnerships and scalable solutions.

One of the clearest areas to put circularity into practice is textile waste. A Ministry study from 2026, covering 15 states and more than 250 stakeholder interactions, estimated annual textile waste generation at 70.73 lakh tonnes. More than 70 per cent is already recovered and routed into recycling, downcycling or upcycling streams, with recovery of pre-consumer waste exceeding 95 per cent. The larger gap is post-consumer waste, where collection, segregation and economically viable recovery systems remain less developed. The study estimated that India’s textile recycling market could reach about $3.5 billion by 2030, with opportunities across collection, sorting, fibre recovery, recycling, upcycling, repair and sustainable manufacturing, with the potential to generate around one lakh green jobs.

The Ministry is moving beyond quantifying the problem to building the infrastructure and market mechanisms needed to close the loop. Textile recovery facilities are being piloted in multiple cities, while textile-waste mapping is identifying the need for stronger collection and sorting systems and policy solutions for blended and non-recyclable materials. A textile-waste management pilot in Navi Mumbai, implemented by the Textiles Committee in partnership with Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation, Saahas Foundation and women’s self-help groups, diverted more than 3,323 kg of textile waste from landfill and incineration, reached over 12,000 families and installed more than 80 collection bins. It also produced over 1,000 samples and upcycled products. Through a partnership between the Textiles Committee, Government e-Marketplace (GeM) and SCOPE, certified upcycled textile products are being brought into public procurement. 31 upcyclers have been certified under the upcycled textile mark, with 27 categories and 40 products live on GeM, helping create an assured market for circular products.

Circularity is only one part of the sustainability story. Much of the environmental footprint of textiles is created during manufacturing and processing, making water, energy and chemicals equally important. The agenda of eliminating hazardous chemicals is being taken up through a major programme with UNIDO, the Global Environment Facility and other partners.

The project aims to reduce hazardous chemicals while improving energy, water and greenhouse gas performance. Its targets include reducing 10,530 tonnes of toxic chemicals directly and 21,000 tonnes indirectly, while mitigating 147,000 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent directly and 294,000 tonnes indirectly. It is also designed to directly reach 40,000 people, 60 per cent of whom are expected to be women. At the infrastructure level, sustainability is being built into the sector’s future industrial geography. Seven PM MITRA parks, with an expected investment of about $10 billion, are envisaged with integrated water, wastewater and common processing infrastructure.

For sustainability to become mainstream, pilots must move into factories and clusters. This is particularly important because a large part of the textile ecosystem comprises MSMEs, which may face constraints in accessing technology, finance, data and technical expertise. The Ministry constituted an ESG Task Force in July 2023, bringing together government bodies, industry associations, chambers, multilateral agencies, innovators, brands and academia. Its work focuses on harmonised certification, cluster handholding, awareness and capacity building, sustainable fashion technology, and the use of artificial intelligence and digitalisation for data and traceability. The ESG Task Force has supported the EU-India Resource Efficiency & Circular Economy Initiative (EU-I RECEI), implemented through GIZ, covering a national assessment of textile waste, a circular economy roadmap for Tamil Nadu, an MSME toolkit for Panipat and a standard operating procedure for Textile Recovery Facilities. A separate UNEP-led programme is providing life-cycle assessment and eco-innovation training and technical assistance to SMEs in the Surat and Karur clusters.

Technology and innovation are also long-term enablers. The National Technical Textiles Mission supports research into waste-to-fibre technologies and conversion of textile waste and bio-residues into advanced green materials. At IIT Delhi’s Panipat campus, the Atal Centre of Textile Recycling and Sustainability is undertaking research and technology transfer, including recycling heat-resistant aramid fibre waste used in defence and aerospace applications. At Bharat Tex 2026, sustainability-focused research on traceable hemp fibre, circular business models and wheat straw as a forest-free alternative for man-made cellulosic fibres further highlighted the breadth of innovation emerging around the sector.