Dutch textile traceability company AWARE™ has signed a cooperation agreement with the Shengze Town People’s Government to develop international supply-chain traceability and help bring the region’s advanced synthetic textile innovations to global markets. The agreement was announced on 10 October during the opening of the 15th Jiangsu (Shengze) Textile Expo, which also celebrated the 40th anniversary of the China Eastern Silk Market.
The collaboration will establish a large-scale pilot connecting textile producers through a neutral, cross-border data infrastructure. The initiative aims to make production origin, material composition, and sustainability evidence accessible to international buyers, while allowing producers to retain control of their own data. As a first step, the partners will launch the first recycled polyester Digital Product Passport.
Shengze is one of China’s most important textile manufacturing centres, home to major producers including Shenghong and Hengli. The China Eastern Silk Market generates approximately RMB 200 billion in annual trading activity.
From Carbon-Capture Yarn in China to a Jacket for Europe
The first practical example was presented during the event. Fuhua Weaving received Wujiang District’s first carbon-capture fabric material Digital Product Passport (mDPP) label, powered by STCP first-mile traceability and AWARE™, demonstrating how innovative materials can be connected to digital production evidence. The fabric was produced using carbon-capture yarn developed by Chinese textile group Shenghong. Fuhua subsequently sold the fabric to Turag in Bangladesh, where it was transformed into a finished jacket carrying a full AWARE™ Digital Product Passport for the European market.
The journey connects three textile producers across two countries, from yarn and fabric manufacturing in China to garment production in Bangladesh. Each producer creates its own digital production record at the source. AWARE™ connects these records with the related material transactions, establishing a continuous chain of evidence that can be used by buyers and importers across different markets. Rather than reconstructing a product’s origin after manufacturing, the evidence is created as the material moves through the supply chain.
Making Chinese Textile Innovation Visible to International Buyers
China’s synthetic textile industry is developing new materials, including carbon-capture-based fibres, recycled polymers, and advanced functional textiles. However, bringing these innovations to international markets increasingly requires more than product specifications and certificates. Buyers need reliable information about the origin, composition, and production history of the materials they purchase. The Shengze–AWARE™ collaboration is designed to address that challenge.
At the core is AWARE™’s tokenisation technology. Each production batch becomes a digital data token, created and owned by the producer, with one token representing one kilogram of verified material. Tokens move from wallet to wallet as the material moves between companies and across borders, and because no producer can send more tokens than exist, mass balance is enforced mathematically. At the finished-goods level, the tokens come together in the product’s Digital Product Passport.
No data is extracted to a foreign platform. The producer publishes its own record and decides which evidence to share with which customer. This allows Chinese producers to offer full traceability to international buyers while respecting China’s own rules on data. The approach allows producers to capture information once and reuse it across buyers, reporting systems, and markets, reducing repeated data requests and the administrative burden on factories.
A Cross-Border Infrastructure Connecting Asian Textile Producers
The Shengze initiative forms part of AWARE™’s wider collaboration with textile industry organisations across Asia. In China, AWARE™ works with STCP and NAFFIC. In India, it has established collaborations with MATEXIL and PDEXCIL, and in Bangladesh with BTMA and BGMEA. These organisations represent producers operating at different stages of the textile supply chain, from fibre and yarn manufacturing to fabric production and finished garments. Connecting their production evidence creates opportunities for textile manufacturers to demonstrate the origin and characteristics of their materials to customers in Europe and other regulated markets.
Producer-Owned Data at the Centre of the Agreement
“This agreement shows that international traceability and producer data ownership can go together,” said Olivia de Seze, Asia Growth Manager at AWARE™. “The Shenghong–Fuhua–Turag supply chain shows how it works: each producer creates its own record, and our tokenisation technology connects materials, producers, and the final product across borders.”
The cooperation agreement was signed on behalf of AWARE™ by Alice Xie, Country Manager China, and Olivia de Seze, Asia Growth Manager.
