From the Sector

Archroma, a global leader in specialty chemicals towards sustainable solutions, and Baldwin, a leading global manufacturer and supplier of precision spray systems and technology for sustainable textile manufacturing, announce a new collaboration to optimize performance and resource saving in the finishing department.

The two companies aim to support textile manufacturers in their development projects, targeting to improve their product safety, performance and functionality, while at the same time maximizing the productivity and resource utilization of the finishing application process.

Archroma and Baldwin are collaborating in multiple projects that combine Archroma’s most sustainable product innovations with Baldwin’s Texcoat G4.

TexCoat G4 is a non-contact spray technology for textile finishing and remoistening, designed to allow a controlled and optimal coverage of the exact amount of finish chemistry for reaching specific characteristics of the fabric. The system can be used to reduce water consumption by as much as 50% compared to traditional padding application processes.

Archroma and Baldwin are currently testing Archroma’s finishing products and systems, such as the soon-to-be-launched PFC-free* Smartrepel® Hydro SR for water-based soil repellence, as well as metal and inorganic particle-free antimicrobial technologies like Sanitized T 20-19 and TH 15-14, which will be launched at the upcoming Techtextil 2022.

The first test results will be available for discussions with both partners at Techtextil at their respective booths.

As a leading company in the collecting, sorting, reselling and recycling of post-consumer textile waste, TEXAID has enabled the recycling of post-consumer textile waste into new textiles and clothing. After two years of development, the company has developed a fabric including 50 % of post-consumer textile waste from used clothing, collected and prepared for recycling by TEXAID.

Today’s linear system of «take – make – waste» needs to change. New textiles are produced, used and discarded instead of putting them to a second use. The production of new textiles requires natural resources that are limited, and the current system has a significant negative impact on our planet. The transition to a circular system, where garments are kept in use for longer, is an opportunity to harness untapped potential around customer loyalty, economic growth, and ecological sustainability.

To move away from the linear system and enable products to be made out of post-consumer textile waste, TEXAID invested in the textile-to-textile recycling and product development.

Collaboration enables recycling
After two years of research, product development, and most important, building partnerships in the value chain, TEXAID has been able to develop a fabric made of 100 % recycled fiber in close collaboration with our value chain partners.

The fabric is a blend of 50 % post-consumer textile waste that TEXAID has collected in Germany and Switzerland. White cotton textiles which cannot be worn, have been sorted out in a sorting facility in Apolda, Germany. The other 50% is made from ocean-bound plastic waste which is plastic with a high risk of entering the ocean which has been saved and recycled by Unifi. The fabric and bag have been produced in Italy. The cotton material has been shredded by Marchi & Fildi in Biella, IT, who then spun the recycled cotton and recycled polyester fibers into a yarn. This yarn has been woven into a fabric by Tessitura Casoni.T.F.C.

Through this proof of concept, it has been showcased that making fabrics of 100 % recycled content and with 50 % of post-consumer textiles is possible. TEXAID is looking for strong industry partners to push high-value textile to textile recycling technologies in joint projects like these.

The EREMA Group, which comprises EREMA Group GmbH and its subsidiaries EREMA, PURE LOOP, UMAC, 3S, KEYCYCLE and PLASMAC, closed the 2021/22 financial year with a 17 percent increase in revenue. Consolidated Group revenue amounted to EUR 295 million, and the number of employees increased to over 840. The EREMA Group remains on course for continued growth.

A closer look at the post consumer segment clearly shows a trend towards larger plants, both for PET recycling and for processing polyolefins. For example, the first VACUREMA® Basic 2628 T machine with an annual capacity of up to 40,000 tonnes was recently commissioned at a customer's site in Brazil. This plant features a ten-meter-long special geometry screw with a diameter of 280 millimetres and a weight of 3.5 tonnes. The screw was developed and manufactured by 3S, a subsidiary of EREMA GmbH.

Demand for previously-owned machines at UMAC also remained high during the past financial year. In addition to the general trend towards plastics recycling, the decisive factor here is that customers are more frequently opting for previously-owned systems available at short notice due to the tense situation on the procurement markets. At the same time, businesses that have so far had little contact with recycling are also becoming increasingly interested in this topic. Their need for feasibility studies, consulting and engineering services, project management and turnkey projects are now also very successfully catered for by KEYCYCLE, an EREMA Group company. KEYCYCLE has also acquired from Cadel Deinking the patent, technology and distribution rights for an innovative ink removal technology, which is now being further developed using the know-how of the EREMA Group and shaped into a product that meets industrial standards.

The initiative launched four years ago to modernise and expand existing EREMA Group sites was continued during the past financial year with the expansion and construction of a dedicated machine demonstration centre for PLASMAC in Milan. Equipped with additional production floor space and new and enlarged customer centres, all companies within the group are now well prepared to meet rising demand, and with the new research and development centre under construction in Ansfelden, the framework for further outstanding plastics recycling milestones from EREMA is currently being optimised.

Adient, a leading global supplier of automotive seating systems, has won the "German Innovation Award 2022" in the category "Information Technologies and Functional Software". Adient's concept of "Mixed Reality as a key to efficient induction training", developed as a pilot project by employees at Adient’s Saarlouis production site, was able to convince the interdisciplinary jury of experts from science and technology.

Adient's concept aims to efficiently train new employees in production areas with the aid of mixed reality glasses. These glasses can be used to scan QR codes that are attached to each workstation. The QR codes call up corresponding videos in the field of view of the glasses which visually help the user to learn about the processes at the respective workstation, thus replacing the previous paper-based work instructions.

With this concept, Adient is using the technology to design and develop world-class seating solution for its global customers. New employees can thus be given a comprehensive understanding of the complex structures of a car seat much better, faster, and in a more realistic way. In addition to optimized communication, changes in the process such as product modifications can be implemented more easily than with printed work instructions.

The Italian company presented its newest innovations and synergies, among the introduction of SMART O3, a new Ozone Booster improving the bleaching on indigo, and the educational experience Circular Explorations: Recipe for Change, in collaboration with Adriana Galijasevic’s Cocircular Lab at Denim Première Vision.

The Trustainable™ collection FW 23 presents the SMART 03
For Officina39, “Trustainable” is a term that expresses the company’s approach based on honesty, transparency and social responsibility: this attitude once again characterizes the technologies that have given shape to the Trustainable™ collection FW 23.

The latest technological addition to the line is represented by the new Ozone Booster SMART 03,
which assures more final bluish indigo shades, activating the reaction of Ozone on indigo without any strong oxidizing agent. Better results, less aggressive bleaching.

Less water, plus sustainability, empowered result
The new collection also marks the debut of Aqualess Fade, a technology that recreates the bleaching effect of chlorine on fabrics, a waterless special compound for the discoloration of denim on indigo/black garments which reduces resource consumption and environmental impact. This newest innovation completes and integrates Aqualess Mission, a combination of technologies that allows garment laundry processes to reduce 75% of the water use.

Officina39 and Adriana Galijasevic join forces
Circular Explorations: Recipe for Change is the collaborative and educational project developed by Officina39 and Adriana Galijasevic’s Cocircular Lab, showcasing the use of waste as a resource and prolonging the life of the garment through color. Several brands (C.P. Company, Tommy for Life/PVH Corp., Organic Basics, Asics, Lenzing and Camo) donated overstock garments as well as second-grade production or damaged, unsold pieces to be updated with newly developed applications made with Officina39’s Recycrom™, patented dyestuffs range made from textile waste.

• with a ready-to-use swatch book dedicated to its DEEP DIVE sustainable dyeing system for dark, popular color basics

Archroma, a global leader in specialty chemicals towards sustainable solutions, launches its first ever ready-to-use swatch book, dedicated to creating sustainable black and dark color basics for faster time to market, to support its popular DEEP DIVE 2.0 system.

In 2018, Archroma launched its system solutions, a holistic approach aimed at addressing the growing expectations of the public in terms of keeping consumers, and the environment, safe.
Under the umbrella of "The Archroma Way to a Sustainable World: Safe, efficient, enhanced, it's our nature", the Archroma systems are designed to create innovation and performance, whilst reducing the impacts on water, energy and other natural resources. The savings generated by these 70+ system solutions are demonstrated by Archroma's proprietary ONE WAY Impact Calculator, a ground-breaking tool launched in 2012 and continuously upgraded to simulate and optimize the footprint of textile application processes.

One of these systems, DEEP DIVE 2.0, has attracted a lot of interest not just from textile manufacturers but also from major brands and retailers worldwide. This popular system combines Drimaren® Ultimate HD, high-performance reactive dyes, with Blue Magic, an all-in-one pretreatment, Optifix® RUB New liq and Siligen® SIH-S New liq, a finishing treatment improved rub fastness and elegant hand feel, and an effective hydrolyzed dye remover, Cyclanon® XC-W New liq. The result is a shorter dyeing process combining right-first-time productivity, an improved fabric quality for longer lasting end-articles, as well as dramatically reduced water and energy utilization for brands committed to drive more sustainable production. Savings can reach up to 31% water and 34% energy.

The system is ideally suited for medium and dark cottons that have high performing fastness to light, multiple home laundering, saliva – in other words: apparel used for fashion, sports and baby’s wear.
At the same time, interested manufacturers and brands were facing the constant challenge of the fashion industry: time to market.

Often design is separated from execution in the factory and as such often designers initially select color that cannot be met in reality on different fibers or production routes in terms of color flare, metamerism, brightness, depth and now sustainable metrics – leading to lengthy delays and compromises in function, performance and/or color.
Archroma decided to create a dedicated tool aimed at addressing these issues. The company developed a new, unique book with color swatches made with the system that is ready to implement immediately into production thanks to engineered color standards and specifications.

This new tool offers a path to bridge the gap between “art and science” by providing at inspiration phase fully executable deep colors for cotton with controlled color metamerism and at the same time demonstrate water, energy and chemical savings, enhanced color fastness using safe chemistry for the end consumer. As a wardrobe staple, medium to dark shades are very popular with consumers. As a result, most brands and retailers often have and sell up to 60% of medium to dark shades in their seasonal palettes. It’s also the dark shades that use the most water and energy in production, so prioritizing these colors would have the largest ecological positive impact. The 48 colors swatched in the DEEP DIVE 2.0 book have been selected based on market popularity to allow brands and manufacturers to match that very stable market demand. Customers may use these colors as presented, or as inspiration whereby Archroma can create and match new custom colors using the DEEP DIVE 2.0 system.

Christophe Maestripieri, Global Head of the Archroma Brand Studio, the company’s department dedicated to support brands’ projects and innovations, explains: “We wanted to make sure our partners have all the tools they need to convert to more sustainable colors. We had the ideal dyeing system to do that, DEEP DIVE 2.0, with its high performance and reduced impacts on resources. Now, with the new DEEP DIVE 2.0 swatch book, we also offer to brands and manufacturers a way to select sustainable color options that meet the market demand for high quality medium to dark shades which can be implemented into production right away.”

• Lectra’s Annual Shareholders’ Meeting held on April 29 appointed two new Directors, Ross McInnes and Hélène Viot Poirier, for a four-year term.
• They both become members of Lectra’s Audit Committee, Nominations Committee and Strategic Committee. Hélène Viot Poirier also becomes a member of the new CSR Committee.

 A major global player in the fashion, automotive and furniture markets, Lectra designs industrial intelligence solutions – software, equipment, data and services – that enable the digital transformation of its customers.
 
In 2017, Lectra launched its Lectra 4.0 strategy with the aim of making the company a key Industry 4.0 player in its markets by 2030. As part of its 2017-2019 roadmap, Lectra successfully integrated key technologies for Industry 4.0 and software solutions in SaaS mode into its offers. The company’s 2020-2022 roadmap should enable it to leverage the full potential of its new offers while ensuring the sustainable and profitable growth of its business.
 
Daniel Harari, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lectra, says: “We are delighted to welcome Ross McInnes and Hélène Viot Poirier to Lectra’s Board of Directors. Through Ross McInnes’ appointment, we will benefit from his extensive experience as a director of listed companies and his knowledge of Lectra’s challenges, as well as his expertise in strategy, management, finance, and governance. Hélène Viot Poirier has extensive knowledge of the digital world and the fashion market. Her appointment will enable the Board of Directors to benefit from her expertise in acquisition strategy, management and the development of environmentally responsible products”.
 
In the last five years, Ross McInnes has been a member of Lectra’s Board of Directors, and a member of the Audit Committee, the Compensation Committee and the Strategic Committee. This first mandate came to an end in April 2020. Ross McInnes is a graduate of the University of Oxford.
 
Since 2020, as an Independent Senior Advisor, she has supported strategic internal and external growth projects in the fashion, digital and consumer goods sectors. Hélène Viot Poirier is a graduate of HEC Paris.

Under the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) initiative to enhance transparency and traceability in the garment and footwear industry, Haelixa realizes a pilot project with Costach Cooperative and Peruvian textile company Creditex to give sustainable rural cotton producers in Peru more visibility in the value chain.

In 2019, UNECE and United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) have set up an initiative to drive transparency and traceability for sustainable value chains in the garment and footwear industry. The initiative is jointly implemented with the International Trade Centre (ITC) with financial support by the European Union. Haelixa is proud to be part of the group of experts that develops policy recommendations, traceability standards, and conducts projects to set traceability benchmarks. With the support of the +Cotton Project, implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC) a pilot is being realized in this context to mark and trace the finest Pima cotton for Creditex directly at the gin in Piura, Peru. Haelixa’s DNA marker connects the actual lint cotton to the entry on a blockchain system provided by UNECE. The Haelixa technology ensures that the information about the product’s origin and the journey of the product along the value chain is always safely embedded into the product itself. The marked cotton will be used to make exclusive pajamas sets for Cat´s Pajamas. DNA traceability will enable the verification of the premium origin of Peruvian Pima cotton in the final garment produced using sustainable practices by family farmers associated with the Costach cooperative.

Costach is the main cooperative of cotton farmers in Peru. The cooperative consists of 5,200 family farmers in the Piura region, producing mostly extra-long fiber of Pima Cotton. Since 2017, the +Cotton project has been supporting the farmers with training on sustainable practices and has been providing technical assistance for improved markets access.

Creditex is vertically integrated from cotton ginning to fine thread, up to the production of high quality apparel for international premium brands. The company takes social responsibility and environmental stewardship very seriously and therefore makes a strong partner for this project, empowering the cotton family farmers that hold the majority of cotton production in Peru.

• Montalvo Honored to Work with Highly Prestigious TsingHua University

Montalvo, an international specialist in Web Tension Control and Web Handling, is honored to work with the highly prestigious TsingHua University in China. TsingHua is known as an elite university in China, with outstanding Research Programs where they focus on addressing global challenges by developing competitive and creative solutions. In this collaboration, TsingHua University purchased multiple pairs of Montalvo ES Load Cells and Amplifiers for their R&D project of a new Web Material Transfer Device. This partnership is a testimony to the accomplishments, successes, and ultimately the recognition Montalvo has earned in the web converting industry for their products, quality, and functionality having been selected by TsingHua University for this project.

CEO Bryon Williams says “This is a very exciting collaboration for Montalvo. We are enthused to be working with universities around the globe in all of our markets, and to be working with a university as prestigious as TsingHua is a great accomplishment. We are very proud to have China as one of our highest export markets as we have been consistently growing our exports to China and around the world. We know their standards are high and are proud that TsingHua has recognized Montalvo’s elite quality of products and highest levels of support. We are very excited to continue our work in providing the world with Better Support, Better Service, and Better Web Tension Control”. 

Archroma, a leader in specialty chemicals towards sustainable solutions, has announced the launch of a collaboration with the University of North Carolina Greensboro (UNCG) and its Consumer, Apparel, and Retail Studies (CARS) department, aiming to further the education of its students in the area of color management expertise.

As per the agreement, Archroma will donate its color management tools for their design projects, gaining hands-on expertise that equips them for successful careers in the fashion and textiles industries.

The students will have access to a complete set of the ready-to-use color library developed by Archroma for cotton and polyester. The library, well known among fashion designers and stylists as the Color Atlas by Archroma®, which was launched in 2016 to provide off-the-shelf color inspiration that can be implemented in production with just a few clicks.

Today, the Color Atlas contains 4’320 colors applicable on cotton poplin, almost the double compared to similar tools available to textile and fashion specialists, and 1,440 colors on polyester.

Beside the physical Color Atlas library, the students in the CARS program will also have access to the full digital files for use in the industry-leading 3D fashion design and development software Browzwear VSticher.

The students will be able to use the Color Atlas books and the digital data as a color selection resources to use in a variety projects and assignments.