Itema joins Ivy Decarb to boost transparency and financing for sustainable textile machinery

Itema has joined Ivy Decarb, the digital marketplace designed to help the textile sector measure and reduce carbon emissions, in a move the company says will accelerate decarbonisation across weaving operations and the broader value chain. According to Itema’s announcement, the partnership makes Itema one of the first textile machinery manufacturers to list technical and environmental performance data on the platform, enabling textile producers to compare machines on metrics such as energy consumption, emissions and carbon footprint.

Ivy Decarb describes itself as a platform that connects machinery suppliers, textile producers, financial institutions and brands to drive a transition to lower-impact production. According to the report by Ivy Decarb, the marketplace responds to rising regulatory pressure, brand commitments on emissions and growing demand for Net-Zero CO2 products by presenting standardised, comparable data and by facilitating access to financing for low‑carbon investment. Industry participants already working with Ivy Decarb include other major machinery makers, reflecting a growing effort to make sustainability performance a buying criterion rather than a marketing claim.

“Sustainability has always been a priority for Itema,” Matteo Mutti, Chief Sales & Service Officer of Itema Group, said in Itema’s announcement. “We were delighted to join Ivy Decarb. Together with them and with the other project partners, we are defining the evaluation criteria for this now fundamental aspect of all textile machineries.” Itema added that it expects its weaving machines, already promoted by the company as among the most sustainable in the sector, to be increasingly recognised by weavers worldwide through the marketplace.

The move underscores two complementary trends shaping industrial decarbonisation in textiles. First, machinery-level transparency: platforms that publish machine technical specifications and life-cycle indicators make it easier for manufacturers to quantify the emissions impact of capital equipment choices. Rieter, another leading supplier, has already publicised a strategic collaboration with Ivy Decarb to list preparation and end‑spinning machines with energy‑consumption details, illustrating how suppliers are responding to buyers’ demand for comparable sustainability data. Second, the alignment of finance with decarbonisation: financial institutions are being embedded into marketplaces to lower the capital barriers to equipment upgrades. UniCredit’s recent partnership with Ivy Decarb, announced in November 2025, integrates tailored advisory and financing solutions into the marketplace, enabling manufacturers to identify and fund low‑carbon investments through local banking partners.

For procurement and sustainability teams, the practical value of the marketplace rests on three features. It standardises machine-level environmental metrics that have historically been inconsistent or opaque; it enlarges the supplier set that can be evaluated on the same basis; and it links equipment selection to accessible financing options. According to industry reporting, these functions aim to shift decision-making from short‑term cost comparisons toward total‑cost and emissions‑aware procurement, an outcome material to companies with scope 3 commitments and to brands that demand traceable reductions across supply chains.

That ambition will face challenges. Standardising machine footprints requires clear, agreed boundaries for measurement and verification across manufacturers and geographies, and buyers will need confidence in data quality and auditability. The industry also confronts variation in grid emissions, processing inputs and downstream use , factors that affect the real-world emissions outcomes of any machine investment. Ivy Decarb’s model seeks to address some of those variables by engaging multiple stakeholders and by pairing technical data with finance and advisory services, but independent verification and consistent reporting frameworks will be crucial for the marketplace to become a trusted procurement tool rather than a marketing forum.

For executives planning capital replacement cycles, the near-term implication is practical: platforms like Ivy Decarb can accelerate the business case for lower‑emission equipment if they demonstrate transparent, comparable metrics and if financing partners like UniCredit provide affordable, tailored credit lines. According to Itema and other suppliers, suppliers and buyers collaborating on evaluation criteria should reduce ambiguity around performance claims and make low‑carbon options easier to specify in tenders.

As the textile industry seeks to meet ambitious decarbonisation targets, the convergence of machine transparency, collective supplier participation and embedded finance is likely to become a defining feature of capital procurement. Itema’s participation , alongside other suppliers engaging the Ivy Decarb marketplace , signals growing momentum, but the platform’s ultimate impact will depend on the robustness of measurement standards, the breadth of supplier participation and the availability of finance that de‑risks investment in lower‑emission machinery.