India: Setting a Direction for Textiles until 2047

The Roadmap was developed by PAGE, through UNIDO, in close cooperation with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and MoT, with the Centre for Environment Education as lead author. It draws on consultations with industry, government, academia and technology providers, including a high-level session in July and a stakeholder workshop in August 2026. It sets out six directions for the sector, from natural fibre leadership and resource-intelligent manufacturing to digital infrastructure and traceability, phased in three stages: 

• Align (2026–2030): policy alignment, technology modernization and digital readiness; 

• Amplify (2030–2035): scaling successful interventions through wider deployment; 

• Accelerate (2035–2047): positioning India as a global leader in textile technology and innovation. 

The Roadmap lays out the conditions for change, including investment mechanisms, skills and institutional capacity, in a sector that supports more than 45 million direct jobs. Its vision for 2047 is an industry characterised by low-carbon manufacturing and circular production systems. 

Together, these documents give the ministry and industry a common reference for which technologies exist, what they deliver, and the order in which they can realistically be adopted. In an integrated sector, sequencing matters because a change in one segment carries through the others. Without a shared reference, commitments stay at the level of intent or get made one factory at a time. Against this backdrop, PAGE’s role is to support policy reform and help a transformation get underway, so action across the value chain has a common direction. 

The three documents were released on 16 September 2026 by the Ministry of Textiles at the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF26) in Gandhinagar, during a session on Circular Economy Value Chains in the Textile Sector, convened by UNEP and UNIDO. 

At Bharat Tex 2026 in New Delhi on 14 July, a high-level session brought together around 70 stakeholders, including policymakers, industry leaders, brands, MSMEs, financial institutions, development partners and technology experts. Participants discussed the same question: what is the most important action needed over the next five years to green the sector without losing competitiveness?  

A central consideration was how smaller suppliers can meet cleaner-production and traceability expectations without undermining cost competitiveness. The session report proposed near-term actions, including a coordinated textile sustainability platform, targeted support packages and green finance for MSMEs, pilots for cleaner technologies and circular business models, and green skills alongside technology deployment. 

A half-day stakeholder workshop in New Delhi on 18 August then reviewed the key findings and recommendations of the Roadmap and Compendium and worked towards consensus on priority actions for the sector. 

None of this starts from scratch. In November 2022, under PAGE India, UNIDO and ILO convened a policy dialogue and presented two assessments: one on technology and innovation status, the other on policy readiness for a just green jobs transition. That work pointed to follow-up analysis on sustainable technology and innovation, with an initial focus on textiles and apparel. 

The labour side of the same sector was examined a year later, when ILO assessed green jobs and decent work in textiles and garments in Jharkhand and found that handloom and sericulture carry low carbon footprints but do not necessarily create decent working conditions. Separately, PAGE supported preparatory work towards a Centre of Excellence on Circularity, published as a guidance manual in 2023. The three documents take up textiles at the technology and policy levels. They are expected to help the industry forecast technology trends and adopt new innovations, and to support Indian machinery manufacturers competing internationally on innovation, ethical production, and climate-resilient practices.