News & Activities

The transition towards a circular economic model in the textile industry requires a systemic approach involving all players in the value chain. First of all, it is necessary to map the needs of the different stakeholders and then provide them with the tools to efficiently address these needs, developing innovative circular textile value chains. This is exactly what TRICK aims to do. Since downstream actors play a pivotal role in the effective management of end-of-life products and resource recovery, the Trick project has highlighted the needs of downstream actors in the value chain to encourage their proactive contribution to closing the loops. 

As the year 2023 winds down, we take a moment to look back at the achievements made by the TRICK Project. This year has been a success story for innovation and collaboration, marking significant advancements in sustainable and circular practices within the project and the partners involved. The dedication and synergy of our partners have been the driving force behind this progress, so big thanks to you! After this incredible year, we warmly invite you to delve into the highlights of our project.

TRICK addresses the issue of circularity by providing its stakeholders with a digital platform equipped with 6 dedicated services, including the PCO (Preferential Certificate of Origin), which plays a key role in the flow of goods with non-EU countries. Bianca Pani's training focused on the development of the user interface for this service. She is the second trainee that our partner Domina accompanied to university degree with a thesis resulting from the fieldwork on our project. Domina’s choice to include students from the University of Turin in TRICK's activities proves how European projects can effectively become a training vehicle and positively influence the education of the next generation on current and relevant issues.

Between November 7th and 10th, several TRICK project partners engaged in the ECOMONDO fair held in Rimini, Italy to showcase the project's progress. TRICK had a notable presence at the booth coordinated by SMI, providing an excellent platform for dissemination among various textile companies and interested stakeholders. This opportunity facilitated meaningful exchanges and the exploration of potential collaborations. Simultaneously, three events unfolded during the fair, which we will detail in this blog post.

From October 24 to 26, the 241st/242nd Sessions of the World Customs Organization (WCO) Permanent Technical Committee (PTC) were held in Brussels. One of the topics on the agenda was technology and digitization in Customs. The PTC was invited to discuss key topics and to develop a concept paper on the use of blockchain by Customs and the role of Customs in a blockchain-enabled environment.

The TRICK project partners recently gathered for their bi-annual General Assembly, this time in the lively city of Barcelona, Spain. Hosted by project partner UPC, the event took place on the 17th and 18th of October. This assembly offered a valuable platform for partners to share updates on their work, address current challenges, and discuss future steps for the project.

TRICK project is going to ECOMONDO! We are very excited to share that the TRICK project will be represented at one of the most impactful events in the industry - ECOMONDO.

At the end of July 2023, the TRICK project has reached an important milestone: the release of the six business services which will be accessible from the B2B Marketplace and integrated into the TRICK core platform. Among the six TRICK business services, the PCO – Preferential Certification of Origin – service has been designed and implemented.

The textile industry is considered one of the largest contributors to environmental pollution, as several hazardous chemicals can remain in clothing as minor contaminants or may be intentionally added to impart specific functional properties. Textile supply chains are long, complex, and fragmented, making the control of health and environmental risks very problematic. Traceability linked to sustainability certifications can be the answer to these challenges. TRICK introduces the Health Protection Compliance Service that has been developed to collect data on chemicals used in each manufacturing stage.

Discover how this innovative add-on to the TRICK platform can enhance the perishable food supply chain, providing manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers with a powerful tool against food waste.

Discover how TRICK's innovative AI-driven Anti-Counterfeiting service is poised to transform the textile industry by tackling counterfeit declarations at their source and ensuring sustainable and transparent practices.

We're excited to share an inside look at the latest TRICK General Assembly! Set against the beautiful backdrop of Trondheim, Norway, this productive meeting was a testament to innovation and collaboration. Each day was filled with insightful discussions, detailed updates, and future-oriented planning.

On May 11th, industry professionals and enthusiasts gathered at the esteemed ItechStyle Summit and ETP conferences in Porto, Portugal. Among the many remarkable sessions held, one particular presentation captured attention—the TRICK project. Led by Carla Fité (UPC), accompanied by Dieter Stellmach (DITF) and two more speakers, the presentation showcased the groundbreaking approach to Ecodesign and Digital Product Passport (DPP). Join us as we delve into TRICK's implementation progress, traceability backbone, and its potential to drive sustainable practices within the textile industry.

TRICK platform will provide a wide range of services, accessible to different types of stakeholders at different stages of confidentiality. In this context the platform architecture, including the skeleton to support both core and business services, cannot miss the security aspects. Therefore, a crucial role is played by the implementation of a component for orchestrating the security related to the access and management of the stored data (e.g. Blockchain infrastructures and databases). 

Our partners made significant strides toward creating a more transparent, sustainable, and efficient food supply chain during the first Food General Assembly Meeting in Italy.

Through the use of blockchain technology, the TRICK blockchain-based platform aims to create an end-to-end secure and auditable record of transactions, promoting trust and collaboration among stakeholders in the textile industry.

The TRICK project partners met once again in Italy for productive days: the third General Assembly took place in February and was dedicated to the upcoming key milestones for the project’s services and technology development.

Researcher and project manager from the Intexter UPC Carla Fité Galan spoke about how the TRICK project leverages blockchain technology to integrate the textile sector in the Circular Economy on the public television of Catalonia.

The 36th edition of Milano Unica took place in Milan (Jan 31 - Feb 2). The exclusive twice-yearly event gathered the leading and high-end companies in textile and accessories sectors from Italy and Europe. Thanks to our project consortium member Sistema Moda Italia (SMI), TRICK is honoured to be introduced by Mr Sergio Tambori, the President of Sistema Moda Italia during the ceremony. Sergio spoke about the challenges the industry is encountering and the needs to implement traceability throughout the supply chain. This is why and how the TRICK project is working on leveraging blockchain to promote traceability and to support the value chain to combat the greenwashing issue, and prepare for the digital passport of the product.

Domina's team supports the project dealing with the design and development of the front-end dashboards of the traceability platform. Tackling the topic "UI solution for the creation of a data collection and traceability platform supporting the conversion of the Textile-Clothing and Food industrial sectors into a sustainable business" in her master thesis, the trainee from Domina, Alessia Casagrande, emphasised the value of research in aiding the project development.

TRICK participated in the Circular Fashion Summit - CFS by lablaco, the global collective action summit for fashion, and for advancing a digital circular economy curated by the TRICK’s consortium member lablaco. The CFS Summit 2022 is centred on how phygital technology can connect organisational cultures to the current creative zeitgeist, establish circular models, and also to design inclusively and effectively with the planet in mind.

We are very pleased to announce that between November 18, 2022, and November 25, 2022, the TRICK consortium member’s ACCUDIRE carried out the first shipments tracked on Blockchain within the Technical Textile Pilot of the TRICK project.

The Schneider Group is a family owned, multinational company based in Italy. The company is specialised in sourcing, processing and supplying wool, cashmere, and other precious animal fibres along its own supply chains to assist customers in the production of sustainable, fully traceable, high-quality yarns and fabrics.

The European Commission published the ‘EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles’, aiming to ensure that the impacts of textile production and consumption on environmental matters are halted or even reversed. Efforts to reduce production and consumption and optimise the use of resources will be key to achieving these goals, along with changes in legislation and support for policies against unsustainable practices. TRICK develops a suite of tools and services that targets the needs of SMEs in the European industry to create sustainable and circular processes. They are being developed by technical experts in close collaboration with industry end users to guarantee effectiveness, reliability, and user-friendliness.

From 8th Nov. to 11th of Nov. at Rimini Expo Centre in Italy, TRICK participated in Ecomondo, the green technology expo and annual trade fair that brings together all sectors of the green and circular economy to more than 100,000 visitors and 1,000 exhibitors.

TRICK's primary goal is to provide affordable and standardised enablers to move SMEs closer to a circular economy. The achievement of this objective will come through creating a platform for managing circular product information based on data collection and secured by blockchain.

The TRICK project proposes the first version of its semantic and model for data collection along the fragmented fashion supply chains to support sustainability and circularity. The relationship with data exchange standards is given a lot of attention, showing an holistic approach to data collection for sustainability, circularity, and transparency.

bAwear-score provides solutions to create impact transparency with its LCA impact data-as-a-service. Calculate, validate and communicate the environmental impact of your textile products.

The World Customs Organization (WCO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Secretariats have been worked together with Member Customs administrations, including the TRICK partner, Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency - Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM), private sector representatives and other stakeholders, to investigate how the use of disruptive technologies can make Customs process more efficient and easier for border management.

ACCUDIRE is an innovative project created with the purpose to revolutionise the world of international shipping with an approach of public-private interoperability, territorial and environmental sustainability, anti-counterfeiting, and enhancement of “Made in”. It has recently joined the TRICK project to provide significant input from the world of logistics and international shipping.

The DITF (Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung, German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research) are currently the largest textile research center in Europe. The institutes work along the complete textile value chain from molecule to product – and back from textile product to molecule, in order to contribute with new and enhanced fibers, textile materials, & products and textile processes.

The interaction between Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency (Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli, ADM) information system AIDA and TRICK platform sets the pillars to cooperate with EU Customs. In the previous blogpost "TRICK platform: flexible, scalable and reliable" we spoke about the conceptual design lying behind the platform architecture of TRICK, and we also deepened the type of services that the platform will perform, that is, the collection and data management of secure product data all along the supply-chain together with a set of six services available in an open B2B marketplace.

UBITECH is a leading, highly innovative, research-oriented software house and technology provider, established to provide leading edge intelligent technical solutions and consulting services to businesses, organizations, and governments to allow efficient and effective secure access and communication with various heterogeneous information resources and services, anytime and anywhere.

The TRICK Project was included in the AIOTI White Paper: Business Impact of IoT in Manufacturing Industries. On the 13th of July, TRICK joined the online webinar held by AIOTI WG Manufacturing which presented the White Paper and the use cases.

Politecnico di Milano (POLIMI) is the leading Italian technical university where 40,000 engineers, architects, and designers are educated each year. In TRICK, Politecnico di Milano supports with its deep experience in the research in the circular economy domain.

What are the benefits of combining Blockchain technology with the textile supply chain? Blockchain can do a lot for the Fashion Industry -- address product counterfeiting issues by ensuring product traceability, support sustainability practices, and improve supply chain overall transparency.

The Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA) is a public university institute with special autonomy working in the field of applied sciences and plays an important role in favour of the community. In the TRICK project, SSSA gives its support to the following topics thanks to its knowledge both of Circular Economy assessment methods and consumer behaviours

Last week from 29th June to 1st July, the second General Assembly of TRICK project took place in Milan, with all 32 partners gathered together both in-person and online. TRICK would like to express our sincere gratitude to TrotusTex Srl and Alfredo Grassi S.p.A. to host the meeting and for organizing this wonderful General Assembly and to all the partners for joining. And very much looking forward to the collaborative results coming in the near future!

The TRICK Project was presented to the WCO by the Italian Customs Agency - Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli (ADM) in WCO’s 2021 Annual Consolidated Survey. As a result, TRICK was mentioned in the paper as one of the examples of use under Blockchain and distributed ledger technology.  

UNIVERLAB is an innovative start-up focused on three main areas: FOOD LAB ANALYSIS, SOFTWARE and HARDWARE. As part of the TRICK project, it will make its IT skills available for the management of the platform tailored for the food pilot. It will also provide the food analysis laboratory to carry out all analyzes for the construction of the new TRICK Platform.

On Wednesday 22nd of June 2022, TRICK project was introduced at the Techtextil fair to a small audience during a special event at the German Institutes of Textile and Fiber Research (DITF) booth together with HEREWEAR and CISUTAC projects. All of them EU Horizon 2020 or HORIZON EUROPE funded projects whose consortiums are composed of some common partners. All three projects have as common goal to promote the change towards a circular future in the textile industry in Europe by creating new knowledge and tools.

The European Technology Platform for the Future of Textiles and Clothing (Textile ETP) was created in 2004 to match research and innovation needs and priorities of the European industry (represented by companies, associations, and clusters) with the knowledge, scientific and technological capacities of universities, research organizations and technology developers to raise the sector’s competitiveness through intensified collaborative research and innovation.

From 14-17th of June, ADM took part in the FORUM PA 2022, the annual event that includes speeches, workshops, seminars, information stands, and annual working tables dedicated to the world of public administration. A specific section of the speech was dedicated to the presentation of the TRICK project.

CEESA, S.A. has more than 30 years of experience and headquarters in the Basque Country, whose mission is to be the main technological partner of its clients. The company is specialized in optimizing business resources and offering comprehensive solutions to improve business management.

TRICK’s main goal is to provide affordable and standardized enablers to move SMEs closer to a circular economy. The achievement of this objective will come through the creation of a platform for the management of circular product information based on data collection and secured by Blockchain. As well-known, TRICK activities are supported by two pilots, involving Textile Clothing and Food supply chains. Therefore, the platform development is a key point of the project, and it must be managed very carefully. The first step is to determine which canons the architecture of the platform will be based on.

Marina Textil S.L. is a company based in Barcelona (Spain) with 20 years of experience in the production of technical fabrics for PPE applications in different sectors of the industry like oil, gas, electric, foundry, and automotive.

i-Deal is an innovative SME based in Biella, Italy founded in 2012 as the development in form of the corporation of the autonomous activities of its founders Alessandro Canepa and Stefano Fasana, who combine scientific and mathematical skills and IT environment training, alongside textile expertise relative to the design and manufacture of garments.

Quadrans Foundation supports the TRICK Consortium by providing Blockchain technology and enabling interoperability within the Blockchain infrastructure. The Foundation is also engaged in disseminating and raising awareness on the project advancement, communicating the degree of innovation achieved using the most appropriate channels and places.

TRICK has prepared a questionnaire to get further insights from brand contacts in order to validate your needs and expectations towards the TRICK project and your involvement in sustainability, circularity, transparency and digitalization.

Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA), a public university institute -with special autonomy-based in Pisa, thanks to its expertise in circular economy and consumer behaviour of the Laboratory on Sustainability Management (SuM), has carried out a survey for the TRICK project about Consumer Behavior relating to Circular fashion, Innovation and Usage of QR code and Blockchain.

Citrus Production District of Sicily is an association that includes, directly and indirectly, hundreds of farms and agencies involved in the citrus production chain in Sicily, Consortia of Protection and associations of quality products (PGI, PDO and Organic). It promotes products and related production areas according to a Development Plan of the Department of Productive Activities of the Sicilian Region.

The policy brief How can standards facilitate the setting up and management of sustainable SMEs supply chains? shows an overview of the policy implications resulting from the written report: “Harmonized set of semantic standards, ontologies, nomenclatures” (D1.4). Its main objective was the definition of the reference framework for TRICK platform activities: on one side the definition of the technical and semantic reference for information exchanges along the supply chains; on the other side the preliminary study for managing effective and efficient PEF (Product Environmental Footprint) evaluations on the supported final products.

One essential objective of the policy brief Establishing legal and technical frameworks for the TRICK platform toward a circular economy is to provide the reader with an exhaustive overview of how different literature frameworks, can drive and limit the usage of the platform functionalities, have been collected and merged. Adequate awareness of the relevant existing legal and technical domains of influence is achieved via a large state-of-the-art analysis.

The policy brief How will the TRICK platform support policies to promote circularity on the TC and food value chains in Europe? is derived from the findings of the written report (D1.2), consisting of describing the Use Case scenarios needed for the implementation of a traceability system that improves transparency and promotes circularity on the textile and clothing (TC) and food industry in Europe, identifying opportunities as well as pain points and how to overcome them.

The policy brief has Sintef as the lead beneficiary and showcases the “roadmaps from linear to circular value chains” that the TRICK project has developed, as they can provide useful input to industrial and public decision-making.

The EU Horizon 2020 project TRICK’s aim is to build an industry standard for blockchain-enabled textile supply chain traceability. To achieve such an ambitious goal, the initial phase of the project focused on the definition of a framework that sets the basis for the development of the TRICK platform. The corresponding work for delivering these results was endorsed by a deep research on the current situation, existing solutions and user needs of the textile, clothing and food industry in the EU to move towards a circular economy. The recommendations outlined in the work are fundamental for the accurate development of the platform. The work was composed of six tasks and summarized in five written reports that address the different concerns in a synchronized and sequential way in order to reach the common objectives.

The Czech Technology Platform for Textiles (ČTPT) is an association of companies and institutions – representatives of the Czech textiles and clothing industry, research and educational institutions as well as related industrial and scientific branches. CTPT’s vision is to see innovation in every business. 

TRICK would like to share with you the news about the 6th edition of Shipping, Forwarding and Logistics Meet Industry that was presented on the 9th, 10th, and 11th of March. The event was organised by Clickutility Team (Italian leader in the conception and realisation of B2B events for the sectors of sustainable mobility, logistics, energy, environment and high tech), and promoted by Confetra (Italian General Confederation of Transport and Logistics), Alsea (Lombardy association of freight forwarders and hauliers), and The International Propeller Clubs (Cultural Association which promotes meetings and relations between people involved in maritime, land and air transport): the aim was to propose a comparison between the world of logistics, shipping, and maritime transport and the world of the Italian productive economy. 

Sistema Moda Italia is the National Federation of the Italian Textile-Fashion Industry. As a member of Confindustria Moda and Confindustria, it is one of the world’s largest employers’ organizations, representing the textile, apparel and fashion enterprises in the Western World. The Federation represents the entire supply chain at a national and international level, speaking with one voice to institutions and public bodies, as well as economic, political, trade-union and social organizations. Sistema Moda Italia represents over 400.000 employees and more than 45.000 enterprises.

Sustainability in technical clothing - The difficulty lies in combining elevated performance with environmental protection, but research, innovation and experimentation come to the aid of Trotus Tex in their achievement of increasingly satisfactory results in this field.

TRICK is honoured to be part of the Circular Fashion Summit's 2022 Catalyst Thought Leadership Panel to share the aim and scope of the project, as well the partners work and visions.

Lablaco is the world’s leading circular fashion ecosystem, connecting key stakeholders through digitization powered by blockchain across multiple realities. By digitizing fashion, lablaco is redefining the relationships between suppliers, designers, brands, retailers, content creators, and individual customers through transparency and circularity.

The Italian Customs and Monopolies Agency participates in the TRICK project, providing its specific expertise in the field of traceability. The Agency is the national authority to release the preferential certificate of origin (PCO). Since PCO is used by customs globally to enforce duties and to foster trade relations between EU and Extra-EU countries, the secure product traceability service will provide a standard data backbone on which additional data generated by the other services provided by TRICK can be aggregated. 

BIBA - Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH is an engineering research institute developing technical and organizational solutions for tasks from various areas of production technology as well as from other related scientific disciplines and puts them into practice both in SMEs as well as multinational companies. 

Marchi & Fildi is a Company with headquarters in Biella and at the head of an international spinning Group, producing yarns for fashion, furnishing and technical use. Marchi & Fildi yarns are produced in Italy, with a process that pays high importance to the reduction of the environmental impact thanks to the continuous sustainable technological innovation. At the base of each Marchi & Fildi yarn, there are several primary elements: the selection of raw materials and the ability of the Group to control each step of the supply chain, in order to guarantee the whole traceability along the production process.

Mai bine's vision is a world governed by sound ethical rules and principles, environmentally sustainable and socially equitable. The mission is to contribute to the sustainable development of the local community by implementing projects under a holistic approach on all three dimensions of sustainable development: natural environment, social environment and economic environment.

The National Research Council of Italy (CNR) is the biggest Italian public research organization implementing research and innovation in all scientific disciplines. STIIMA - the Institute of Intelligent Industrial Technologies and Systems for Advanced Manufacturing - is the Institute of CNR devoted to research and development in the manufacturing sector.

Holonix provides advanced ICT solutions for the manufacturing domain and for the circular economy approach. Holonix solutions are mainly focused on the creation of value from the collection of data from different companies of one or more value chains. The company has extensive experience in collecting, aggregating and analysing data, as well as making them available for the development of added-value services and apps. 

Carlo Piacenza, CEO of the historic Biella-based SME manufacturer of fine woollen fabrics and clothing, Piacenza Cashmere, with the company being TRICK’s project coordinator, was welcomed to speak at this year’s edition of the Milano Fashion Global Summit. Since 2002,  the Milano Fashion Global Summit gathers “key people in [the] fashion industry and other leading personalities from all over the world”,  who raise their voice for needed changes and facing challenges of the fashion industry in this ever-moving and fast-expanding market.

SINTEF is Norway's largest independent research organization. Manufacturing is the institute at SINTEF that conducts world-class applied research within the area of sustainable manufacturing.

ENEA is the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, a public body aimed at research, technological innovation and the provision of advanced services to enterprises, public administration and citizens in the sectors of energy, the environment and sustainable economic development.

The INTEXTER, Institute of Textile Research and Industrial Cooperation of Terrassa, is a basic unit of the UPC, the biggest technical university of Spain. The activities carried out in the institute are addressed to encourage research and industrial cooperation in all the fields of the textile industry and others related to it.

As part of TRICK’s first hybrid General Assembly, project partner Marchi & Fildi Group S.p.a hosted the consortium partners that were joining in person in Biella at their production and recycling facilities on the 22nd of September 2021. Owing to Biella’s reputation as a renowned textile district with extensive years of experience, leading Italian and international companies working in the sector have settled down there.

For the TRICK project, Sqetch plays an essential role to spread the word, as it will be responsible for managing all the project-related dissemination activities and will create relevant content for dedicated channels targeting all possible audiences. Sqetch is a B2B online sourcing platform that supports the process for fashion brands to look for, connect to and collaborate with suppliers around the world.

Domina is a software company skilled in data management in different domains: process industry, discrete manufacturing, energy, and consumers’ and end-users’ applications. We have run data management services since 1998 - and we are deeply engaged in the development of innovative and customized software solutions with a focus on SMEs and manufacturing. 

Piacenza is an SME manufacturer of fine woollen fabrics and clothing, the leader in the top segment of noble fibre fabrics for fashion and luxury markets. It is the supplier of fabrics to all world-leading fashion brand manufacturers such as Zegna, Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton and Hermès. It is based in the Italian textile district of Biella, where all its production is realized, and it is considered one of the oldest textile industries in the world.

The General Assembly took place on 22-24 September in a hybrid format, having all 28 consortium partners joining in person and also virtually. During the three days of the inspiring get-together, we aligned on upcoming project activities, established interconnections between work packages and, most importantly, got to know and connect with each other.

Introducing TRICK project: the H2020 funded project for adoption, tracing and demonstration of sustainable approaches by means of an innovative and circular product information management system secured by Blockchain