India’s textile sector, a significant contributor to the country’s industrial energy usage and emissions, faces urgent pressure to align with national decarbonization targets, including India’s pledge to reach Net Zero by 2070. This sector is energy-intensive and heavily export-oriented, making its transition towards low-carbon pathways both a sustainability imperative and a competitiveness challenge.
Key initiatives include mapping major textile clusters and industrial states, analyzing financial, technological, and policy landscapes, and engaging stakeholders to identify barriers such as outdated machinery, inadequate green financing access, and limited awareness. While larger export-oriented firms are gradually adopting renewable energy and sustainability reporting, MSMEs lag in critical areas like energy efficiency, ESG disclosures, and wastewater management.
To accelerate the green transition, programs like ADEETIE and schemes from SIDBI offer policy incentives, capital subsidies, and concessional loans targeted at energy efficiency, renewable energy adoption, and technology upgrades. States like Rajasthan, with vast solar potential and strong policy support, are poised to pioneer MSME-led decarbonization models focusing on renewable adoption, energy audits, and financing innovation.
Transition pathways emphasize equipment efficiency improvements, process optimization, renewable integration, and heat recovery technologies, potentially reducing energy use by up to 40%. However, barriers remain around upfront costs, technology adoption, policy uncertainty, and capacity building.
The sector must advance human capital readiness through reskilling and fair workforce practices alongside technical upgrades to ensure a just transition. Tools like a Textile Decarbonization Index aim to enable companies to benchmark progress, share best practices, and support data-driven policymaking for a sustainable, competitive, and resilient textile industry in India.
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