Europe
Robert Long, Secretary General of the European Textile Services Association (ETSA), summarized several initiatives that ETSA took after the COVID 19 pandemic to help its members and the global textile services industry.
He wrote that textile services companies are facing an unprecedented crisis in the protection of workers and customers, who are having trouble keeping up in the face of lower demand, and are preparing for the post-COVID-19 period.
In the meantime, the national textile service associations in Europe are working hard to:
• Technical support for membership
• Monitoring and informing members about economic aid measures
• Communicate with the authorities about measures that should help our industry, for example to understand that hygienically clean textiles are a basic need and therefore textile services are essential or at least systemically important
• Advising membership on best practices and
• Plan exit strategies for our sector
ETSA itself focuses on monitoring and providing a platform for members to share best practices to deal with the COVID-19 crisis by making weekly COVID-19 Webex calls to national associations. The sixth weekly call was made on Thursday, April 9th. The association also looks at how best to work with suppliers and learn from other European industry associations, how to deal with COVID-19, especially other business services sectors, and what monitoring is relevant to developments in the European Union (EU).
"Increasingly," said Long, "we are concentrating on preparing for the post-COVID-19 period and ending this crisis."
“We believe that the post-COVID period will be even more receptive to the many positive aspects of textile services as a solution for businesses and society in general, namely:
• The importance of using hygiene specialists for textiles. Textile services have decades of experience
• The importance of process validation (and disinfection) for proper hygiene
• Reuse and recycling are better than disposable items
"While economic and cost factors remain fundamental, resource efficiency, circularity and sustainability will be more important, as will the use of proximity and local businesses and the added value of outsourcing and externalization."
