The collaboration will equip Indian powerloom producers with blockchain-anchored, fibre-forward traceability tools, helping them prepare for emerging EU Digital Product Passport requirements while retaining ownership of their production data.
The Powerloom Development & Export Promotion Council (PDEXCIL) and AWARE™, the Amsterdam-based neutral, cross-border data infrastructure for textile producers, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding at Bharat Tex 2026 in New Delhi.
The agreement was signed by Mr. K. Sakthivel, Chairman of PDEXCIL, and Mr. Feico van der Veen, Founder and Managing Director of AWARE™.
The European Union is introducing Digital Product Passport requirements under the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. Textiles are among the priority product groups, making early traceability readiness increasingly important for producers supplying European brands and markets.
India’s powerloom sector sits near the beginning of the textile value chain. Producers that can provide reliable, portable evidence of material origin, composition and production history will be better positioned to meet the evolving sourcing and compliance requirements of international customers.
AWARE™ supports this transition through blockchain-anchored tokenisation technology. Its infrastructure creates a Data Token for each production batch, carrying authenticated information about the material’s origin, composition and credentials.
The token travels with the physical goods across successive stages of production and across borders, creating a verifiable chain of custody. This enables producers to generate blockchain-issued Crypto TCs® and build the data foundation required for Digital Product Passports. The data is generated at source and remains under the ownership and control of the producer.
“Everyone else built for the brands. We built for the producers. India’s powerloom sector is where a large part of the world’s textiles begins. The data must start here and travel with the goods, not be reconstructed later. In a world where an unverifiable claim can become a legal liability, verified, producer-owned data is not simply a feature. It is access to the market.
” — Mr. Feico van der Veen, Founder and Managing Director, AWARE™
Under the MOU, PDEXCIL will introduce AWARE™ to its members and support awareness, education and potential adoption across the powerloom sector. This will include industry engagement through workshops, training sessions, webinars and other member communication channels.
AWARE™ will provide preferential terms to verified PDEXCIL members, together with onboarding, training and technical support. The collaboration is designed around data sovereignty: producers retain ownership and control of the supply-chain data they generate.
“The EU Digital Product Passport will bring significant changes to the way textile products and production data are presented in international markets. Through this collaboration, we aim to help Indian powerloom producers strengthen their traceability capabilities, prepare for emerging requirements and improve their competitiveness while retaining ownership of their data.
” — Mr. K. Sakthivel, Chairman, PDEXCIL The parties intend to begin initial implementation projects with selected PDEXCIL member units shortly.
