From the Sector

DOMO Chemicals, a global leader in polyamide-based engineered material solutions and services, has published its latest annual Sustainability Report, detailing progress on its sustainability journey, including notable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. DOMO’s mission is to engineer polyamide solutions that contribute to a better, more sustainable world. In publishing its second annual Sustainability Report, DOMO enters a new phase in its decarbonization quest, with confidence in its long-term aspiration to set the standard for sustainability in the industry by 2030.

Notably, the Sustainability Report details DOMO’s achievements in 2022 toward realizing its 2030 sustainability goals. In terms of decarbonization and broader environmental achievements, against a 2019 baseline, the company:

• Reduced scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 27%, making significant progress toward its target of 40% reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050
• Increased renewable electricity throughout operations to 12%
• Reduced waste by 24%
• Lowered water intake by 4.5%

In addition, as a provider of polyamide-based sustainable and circular solutions, DOMO:

• Achieved more than 11% of engineered materials sales based on sustainable feedstock, making excellent progress toward its 2030 target of 20%
• Allocated 25% of research and development resources to enhanced recycling

Moreover, fostering talent and ensuring the well-being of its workforce as a responsible employer is essential for sustainable growth, and 2022 highlights include:

• Increased share of women in senior positions from 22% in 2021 to 30% in 2022
• Providing a safe and inclusive working environment that encourages personal and professional development as well as a global safety culture

An openly accessible online energy savings calculator for all users of powder coatings has been launched by AkzoNobel.

All powder coatings customers can instantly calculate the energy and carbon reduction they could achieve with the company’s Interpon products and related services.

It's the latest example of how the company is continuing to work towards its ambition of reducing carbon emissions across the full value chain by 50% by 2030. “Sustainability is critical for all of us and helping customers to reduce energy is one of the many ways we can work with – and for – them in order to meet our shared ambitions,” says Jeff Jirak, Director of AkzoNobel’s Powder Coatings business.

To make using the tool as easy as possible, the calculator – currently only available in Europe – is supported by a detailed guide, which helps customers better understand how even making small changes in the powder coating process can have a big impact in terms of becoming more energy efficient. These include checking for leakages in compressed air systems, improving insulation and ensuring all process equipment is regularly serviced and maintained. Customers also receive expert support from Interpon’s technical service team.

Nylon 6, nylon 6,6, polypropylene, PET and calcium carbonate are available through the company’s proprietary carpet recycling process

Circular Polymers by Ascend, a market-leading recycler of post-consumer carpet, today the launch of Cerene™, a line of recycled polymers and materials made from the company’s proprietary carpet reclaiming technology. Cerene is available as polyamide 6 and 66, PET, polypropylene and calcium carbonate as a consistent,
sustainable feedstock for many applications, including molding and compounding.
Recycling experts from Circular Polymers will be showcasing Cerene at Compounding World Expo on June 14-15 at the Messe Essen in Germany.

Ascend Performance Materials, a fully integrated producer of durable high-performance materials and the majority owner of Circular Polymers by Ascend, is known for its innovations in nylon 6,6. Cerene will continue that legacy with offerings in nylon 6,6 while also bringing to market recycled polymers such as nylon 6, PET and PP.

“Customers around the globe are seeking consistent and reliable post-consumer recycled materials,” said Maria Field, business director of Circular Polymers by Ascend. “Cerene is mechanically recycled using a process that minimizes our carbon footprint and environmental impact.”

Circular Polymers by Ascend converts post-consumer carpet into fiber and pellets. The company uses a proprietary process in its California-based facilities to achieve high efficiency in recycling, successfully providing a new life for virtually every component of the carpet and backing. The company has redirected 85 million pounds of carpet from landfills into new goods since 2018.

Sustainable Chemistry for the Textile Industry (SCTI™) and Together for Sustainability (TfS) are teaming up to support and accelerate the leather and textile industry's sustainability journey through sustainable chemistry. Together they will collaborate in driving convergence in standards and methodologies and inspire industry action for a better future.

SCTI is an alliance of leading chemical companies that strives to empower the textile and leather industries to apply sustainable, state-of-the-art chemistry solutions that protect factory workers, local communities, consumers and the environment.

TfS is a member-driven initiative, raising Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards throughout the chemical industry. TfS members are chemical companies committed to making sustainability improvements within their own – and their suppliers’ – operations. TfS has also launched a comprehensive program to foster defossilization of chemical value chains, providing standardization tools to enable effective Scope 3 management based on primary data and launching the TfS Guideline to determine Product Carbon Footprint (PCF).

Both TfS and SCTI share the mission to drive transformational change, and intend to collaborate on advancing the industry’s sustainability goals, leveraging the TfS Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) program.

KARL MAYER GROUP will be presenting a WEFTTRONIC® II G at the ITMA with new features and upgrades for greater efficiency. This warp knitting machine with weft insertion produces lattice structures from high-strength polyester, which are firmly established in the construction industry in particular. With a working width of 213", it offers productivity and further advantages through design innovations. New features include weft thread tension monitoring, management and the new VARIO WEFT laying system. The component for the weft insertion aims at maximum flexibility. It allows the patterning of the weft yarn to be changed quickly and easily electronically, without mechanical intervention during yarn insertion and without limits on repeat lengths. In addition, there is less waste.

The KARL MAYER GROUP also supports its customers with well thought-out Care Solutions. The new support offers include retrofit packages for retrofitting control and drive technology for weft insertion and composite machines, and service packages that bundle various services. These include machine inspections and the replacement of all drive belts. The customer benefits from fixed prices that cover the costs of technician assignments, various discount options and transparent services.

A new solution for the vertical greening of cities is presented from the field of application for technical textiles. The core of the innovation is a grid textile produced on warp knitting machines with weft insertion by KARL MAYER Technische Textilien GmbH. The knitted lattice fabric is made of flax. It is used as a climbing aid for fast-growing plants, and after the greening phase, in autumn, it can be recycled together with these plants as biomass in pyrolysis plants to produce electricity and activated carbon. In summer, the planted sails lower the ambient temperature through evaporation effects. In addition, photosynthesis creates fresh air and binds CO2. Other important advantages are low soil requirements and flexible placement in public spaces. The greening system was developed by the company Micro Climate Cultivation, OMC°C, with the support of KARL MAYER Technische Textilien.

The KARL MAYER GROUP will also be exhibiting a sustainable composite solution made from natural fibres. The reinforcing textile of the innovative lightweight material is a multiaxial non-crimp fabric, which was also produced from the bio-based raw material flax on a COP MAX 4 from KARL MAYER Technische Textilien. The boatbuilding specialist GREENBOATS uses natural fibre composites to achieve sustainable products. The fact that it succeeds in this is shown, for example, by the Global Warming Potential (GWP): 0.48 kg of CO2 per kilogram of flax reinforcement compares with 2.9 kg of CO2 per kilogram of glass textile.

wet-green GmbH announced today that it has earned the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Certified Biobased Product Label for wet-green® OBE 1 tanning agent for Olivenleder®.

wet-green® OBE 1 is made of 100% biobased raw materials coming from by-products of olive growing, covered by a global patent. wet-green® OBE 1 is applied as a pre-tanning agent and replaces standard tanning technologies e.g. Chromium, Glutaraldehyde, Zeolites etc., is non-corrosive, metal-free, free of synthetic reactive tanning chemicals, formaldehyde-free, glutaraldehyde-free, bisphenol-free, syntan free, viscous, pumpable and pleasant smelling. wet-green® OBE 1 is the next generation vegetable tanning agent suitable for a wide range of leather articles and applied since many years in areas e.g. automotive, upholstery, garments, shoes and accessories.

The wet-green® tanning agent for Olivenleder® can now display a USDA label that highlights its percentage of biobased content. Third-party verification for a product's biobased content is administered through the USDA BioPreferred® Program, which strives to increase the development, purchase, and use of biobased
products.

Biobased products help address climate change by offering renewable alternatives to petroleum-based products; sequester carbon dioxide, lowering the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere that contribute to climate change; create and expand markets; are generally safer for people and the environment than their petroleum-based counterparts; and represent incredible technological advances and innovations.

B.I.G. Yarns unveils its new “SustainableYarns” platform, with Clerkenwell Design Week visitors the first to be invited to get on board and focus on what matters most for the design and manufacture of sustainable soft floorings.

The expert in polyamide (PA) 1 step 3 ply yarns offers a range of options for manufacturers to introduce sustainable yarns into carpet solutions and reach sustainability targets faster and more efficiently.

The Sustainable Yarns range creates opportunities to design with recycled content yarn (EqoCycle), to work with renewable resources (EqoBalance), and, following the launch of new polyamide 6 (PA6) EqoYarn at Clerkenwell Design Week, to also leverage the low-impact value chain.

New addition EqoYarn is a new low-impact PA6 carpet yarn based on the most recent innovations in polymer production, which enable yarn manufacturers to lower their carbon footprint by nearly 50% and give carpet manufacturers more options to reduce their impact.

For its EqoYarn Bulk Continuous Filament (BCF) production process, B.I.G. Yarns has selected the few best-in-class partners that have made major steps forward in terms of sustainability, and reduced their greenhouse gas emissions thanks to continuous investments in process efficiency, green energy, heat optimization and waste reduction. The result is EqoYarn with a carbon footprint of 4 kg CO2 eq/kg yarns, which is a CO2 reduction of up to 50% compared to conventional PA yarns.

EqoBalance PA6 yarns enable customers to reach an even higher CO2 reduction of up to 75%. Manufactured with polymers made from renewable resources such as organic waste from cooking oil instead of virgin or fossil feedstock, these yarns have a carbon footprint of 1.98 kg CO2 eq./ kg yarns. They help carpet manufacturers to create products with an extremely low carbon footprint.

EqoCycle PA6 yarns are fully recyclable and incorporate 75% recycled content originating from recycled and regenerated PA6 granules. With a carbon footprint of 4.64 kg CO2 eq./ kg yarns, they deliver the same high-quality performance of virgin PA6 yarn with the benefit of 37% CO2 reduction. EqoCycle yarns offer carpet manufacturers a sustainable alternative to help reduce the ecological footprint of their products and move towards a circular economy without jeopardizing the end-product quality.

In addition to the different CO2-reducing options, B.I.G. Yarns’ customers can access an unlimited colour range to elevate their designs. Its BCF technology for polyamide yarns, twisted and heat-set yarns, one-colour to multi-colour, between 650 and 15000 dTex, along with its colour studio, are available to support their creation of customised collections.

Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited, a global sustainable chemical producer, was upgraded to "A" from "BBB" in MSCI’s ESG rating, reaffirming the company’s effective management of sustainability related risks and opportunities.

MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital International), an independent provider of research-based indices and analytics, ranked Indorama Ventures among the top 14% of 65 companies worldwide in the commodity chemicals industry. The rating has placed it in the top quartile for opportunities in clean tech, water stress, corporate governance, and corporate behavior.

Indorama Ventures is committed to reducing water intensity by 10% by 2025 and 20% by 2030. It developed a Water Risk Assessment Report on its contributions to achieving sustainable management of water targets and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs). For improved corporate governance, the company provides whistleblowers with protection from retaliation, and has policies on business ethics and anti-corruption. Relating to opportunities in clean tech, Indorama Ventures’ is investing in recycling technology and biomass feedstock under its Vision 2030, and is also investing in operational efficiencies, carbon capture technology, renewable energy, and phasing out coal to reduce Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions.

MSCI ESG Ratings aim to measure a company’s resilience to long-term ESG risks. Companies are scored on an industry-relative AAA-CCC scale across the most relevant key issues based on a company’s business model. Investors, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, and asset managers, commonly consider the ratings to assess financial risks in the investment process.

At ITMA 2023 in Milan from June 8-14 this year, Monforts is organising two free-to-attend seminars and discussions on the potential of green hydrogen as a new energy source for textile finishing, drying and related processes.

Monforts is currently leading a consortium of industrial partners and universities in the three-year WasserSTOFF project, launched in November 2022, that is exploring all aspects of this exciting and fast-rising new industrial energy option.
The target of the government-funded project is to establish to what extent hydrogen can be used in the future as an alternative heating source for textile finishing processes. This will first involve tests on laboratory equipment together with associated partners and the results will then be transferred to a stenter frame at the Monforts Advanced Technology Center (ATC).

To be considered “green”, hydrogen must be produced using a zero-carbon process that is powered by renewable energy sources such as wind or solar. Currently, the cleanest method of hydrogen production is electrolysis, using an electrically-powered electrolyzer to separate water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The purity of the hydrogen is also important, and impurities must be removed via a separation process.

“Despite all its advantages, there are obstacles to overcome on the way to widespread, economically-feasible green hydrogen use,” explains Monforts Textile Technologies Engineer Jonas Beisel. “Until there are widely available, reliable and economical sources of this clean power, the cost of producing it will remain prohibitive. The infrastructure is not yet there, and hydrogen also has a tendency to make steel brittle and subject to fracture, which is something that requires further investigation in both its transportation and use in industrial processing.
“Green energy’s potential as a clean fuel source is tremendous, but there is much we need to explore when considering its use in the textile finishing processes carried out globally on our industry-leading Montex stenter dryers and other machines.”

At its Advanced Technology Center (ATC) in Mönchengladbach, Monforts will be carrying out intensive tests and trials to assess the reliability of both processes and final products when different natural gas and hydrogen mixtures – up to 100% green hydrogen – are employed. The results will be closely analysed by the consortium partners because there are many parameters that at this stage remain unknown.

The aim, Beisel adds, is to both reduce CO₂ emissions and – following the rising prices and industry turbulence experienced by manufacturers over the past year or so – to further reduce a dependency on natural gas.

The three-year WasserSTOFF project is sponsored by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and with Monforts at the helm brings together industrial partners Pleva and NTB Nova Textil, with academic input from the Hochschule Niederrhein and the Technical University of Freiberg.

adidas has announced a new milestone in its journey towards replacing virgin polyester with recycled polyester . 96% of all polyester used in adidas products is now recycled polyester. The achievement of the ambition that adidas first set in 2017 – to replace all virgin polyester with recycled wherever possible by the end of 2024 – is on track to be achieved earlier than expected.

Since the first adidas high-performance shoe was made with recycled materials in 2015, the brand has been working towards reducing its dependency on virgin polyester. Last year it announced that in 2021, more than 90% of the polyester used in adidas products was recycled, which – if it had been virgin polyester - would have accounted for 390 thousand metric tons of CO₂e – the equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions generated to provide power to 50 thousand homes in the US^[1].

According to Textile Exchange^[2], global recycled polyester fiber production volume increased in 2021, but still accounts for just 14.8% of all global polyester production.

Sport is about meeting challenges head-on and finding ways to overcome those – material innovation is no different. For the team at adidas, the road to 96% has been long and full of challenges. The confirmation of its polyester commitment in 2017 was a crucial step in helping to initiate a transformation across adidas and its entire supply chain. This transformation has been made possible through creating technical solutions and imagining new possibilities that previously didn’t exist.

To accompany the announcement, adidas has created a short film about its new ‘PB’, featuring star athlete Jazmin Sawyers. The film highlights the sports brand’s pride in making progress, and its determination to push further.

As the brand looks ahead to 2024 and beyond, it will continue to expand its focus beyond recycled polyester. It will be doing this through three main areas of focus: changing materials by testing and scaling new raw materials, rethinking entire processes to design products that have a circular end-of-life solution, and reducing its carbon footprint.

^[1] adidas Footprint Analytics team
^[2] Textile Exchange Preferred Fiber & Materials Market Report, October 2021, https://textileexchange.org/app/uploads/2022/10/Textile-Exchange_PFMR_2022.pdf