The sprint roundtable Stitching Futures, promoted by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Culture & Creativity and dedicated to the sustainable transition of the fashion sector, took place in Bologna on July 3, 2025. Key stakeholders took part in the meeting, including ART-ER, which is an active member of the Permanent Regional Fashion Working Group of Emilia-Romagna and a partner in the project Horizon Europe Just Fashion.
The presence of ART-ER highlighted the importance of connecting European strategies with local actions. The Just Fashion project is a concrete example of this approach since it aims to support Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the fashion sector in their green transition. In this context, ART-ER coordinates the pilot case of Staff Jersey (Italy), a company that is testing the application of the Digital Product Passport (DPP) on its sportswear line, directly addressing one of the central themes of the debate.
Three pillars for the future of fashion
The roundtable identified fashion as a priority area for EIT Culture & Creativity and aligned its innovation objectives with three interdependent areas of intervention:
- Governance and distributed responsibility: the discussion focused on the need to address regulations across the value chain. The current system, which burdens final brands with collecting all the upstream data, was questioned, proposing a decentralized approach to traceability to better support MSMEs in this process;
- Data and digital assets: the priority is on implementing traceability through strategic tools like the DPP. The meeting highlighted the challenges related to supply chain fragmentation and the need to scale the passport from pilot projects to a MSME-ready regional roll-out;
- Market engagement and planet impact: the urgent need to rebuild consumer trust, counter greenwashing, and define quality (more durable/repairable garments) as a strategy to balance invested resources and market demands was discussed.
The takeaways from the roundtable will feed into the thematic proposals that EIT Culture & Creativity is preparing as input for the next Horizon Europe Cluster 2 calls.
