The second edition of the REuse Economy Expo, was held at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles on the 19th and 20th May. It brought together more than 4,000 professionals from 30 countries. The event has rapidly established itself as the defining gathering for circular economy stakeholders across Europe, covering sectors from electrical and electronic equipment to, for the first time this year, construction and textile.
The political dimension of this edition was striking. French President Emmanuel Macron visited the show floor before chairing the 5th Ecological Planning Council directly from the venue, alongside Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu and ministers for Ecological Transition, Industry, Transport and Housing. The signal was clear: the circular economy is no longer a peripheral policy agenda. It sits at the core of national and European industrial strategy.
The Digital Product Passport at the heart of the debate
A central focus of the event was the Digital Product Passport, explored in depth within the CIRPASS-2 DPP Village, where solution providers, manufacturers, industry associations and policymakers engaged in substantive conversations about practical implementation.
Under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), batteries lead with a confirmed mandatory DPP obligation from 18 February 2027. Textiles and furniture follow, with the EU indicating provisional timelines: the textile delegated act expected in 2027 and mandatory application from 2029, and the furniture delegated act anticipated in 2028 with mandatory application from 2030. These dates will only be confirmed upon publication of each delegated act, which will include a specific tolerance period. For textile manufacturers supplying upholstered furniture, the two processes run in parallel and represent a converging compliance horizon.
Early movers are expected to gain a concrete competitive advantage, both by shaping practical implementations ahead of delegated acts and by building the internal capabilities that late movers will be scrambling to develop under pressure.
Opportunities for the professional clothing sector
DPP is frequently framed as a compliance requirement. The conversations at REuse Economy Expo reframed it as something more significant: an operational infrastructure that, if implemented well, creates measurable business value.
The event saw the launch of Reuse Economy: 10 Key Levers for Scaling Up, a collective publication bringing together 27 European experts across five countries. It positions the Reuse Economy as a strategic pillar of European reindustrialisation, with the DPP as a foundational enabler.
For professional clothing manufacturers, the practical opportunities identified at the event are directly relevant:
- Supporting repair, reuse and extended product lifecycles
- Providing structured access to spare parts, compatible accessories and product data
- Enhancing traceability across supply chains and improving sustainability reporting
- Strengthening after-sales services and customer engagement
Cross-sector exchanges surfaced several emerging use cases that illustrate these opportunities in practice:
- Lifecycle tracking enabling more efficient sorting and recycling at end of life
- Verification of authorised repairs, creating trust in second-life products
- Expanded data transparency addressing the complexity of material separation for recycling centres
- DPP as a living product record, updated throughout the product’s life rather than fixed at point of sale
A consistent theme across sessions was quality as a prerequisite for trust. The Reuse Economy cannot scale without verifiable evidence of a product’s history, composition and condition. The DPP is the instrument designed to carry that evidence.
Navigating DPP implementation
As DPP frameworks take shape, the professional clothing sector faces both the complexity of implementation and the opportunity to act ahead of competitors.
PCIAW continues to monitor regulatory developments, cross-sector use cases and practical implementation tools to ensure the sector has the guidance and connections needed to respond with confidence.
Among the solutions present at REuse Economy Expo, TX DPP, developed by Worldline’s Track&Trace division, was noted for its accessibility and field-readiness in an environment where many DPP platforms remain technically complex and difficult to operationalise. It is designed to function as a front-line operational tool, giving technicians, repairers and after-sales teams fast access to a product’s full history.
What sets TX DPP apart is not only its current capabilities, but the industrial questions it is already working to resolve. The DPP framework raises challenges that go beyond compliance and touch the very structure of circular product flows.
“The challenge of DPP inheritance is not theoretical. It is already present in textiles. A garment made with recycled cotton carries a material history that its DPP will have to reflect. Getting this right is not just a compliance question. It is a product integrity question, and one that will define how credible the circular economy actually is for manufacturers.”
— Paul Defiez, Head of Track&Trace Product Management
Further information and a demonstration are available at easydpp.eu
