From the Sector

Adient, a leading supplier of automotive seating systems, has achieved full ISCC PLUS (International Sustainability & Carbon Certification) of its foam plants in Lučenec (Slovakia) and Mandling (Austria) for increasing the sustainability of foams produced for its automotive seating systems. The stringent global sustainability certification system of ISCC allows for proven enhanced traceability of circular polyurethane (PU) foams throughout the supply chain.
 
The environmental impact of the newly developed PU formulations and processes of molded foams is improved by the re-integration of waste materials from industrial & natural origins replacing crude oil into the PU raw materials. This reduces the use of fossil-based materials in favor of recycled materials, to foster the development of a circular economy. As a result, the plants can offer foams with up to 20% less CO2 impact while fulfilling the same quality requirements as their conventional equivalents. To date, Adient is the first European ISCC PLUS certified PU foam manufacturer in this field.

Based on a mass balance approach, the certification highlights the need to envi-ronmentally balance every single stage of automotive value creation, including the entire supply chain.

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.

A total of 20 European fashion and design schools took part in the 2nd “Fashioning Sustainability” competition organized by Freudenberg Performance Materials together with Macpi and Bemberg™ by Asahi Kasei, two co-branding partners in the textile industry.

Freudenberg invited talented young designers to create and submit their ideas for sustainable clothing. The initiative aims to show that sustainability is a key factor in the fashion industry.

Two of the most innovative outfits from each school were selected for the final round and presented to an international jury at the “Bagni Misteriosi” event location in Milan in May. Fashion design experts and opinion leaders as well as journalists were invited to select the most sustainable designs in the categories of “Technology” and “Design”.

The winners
First place in the “Technology” category went to Judith Marquant while the second to Jagoda Sokolowska, both students of the fashion school Esmod in Paris. Ilaria De Martino, from the fashion institute Modartech, Italy, and Xiaodan Liao from Polimoda, Italy, were awarded first and second place in the “Design” category. The first-place winners received €2,000, while the second places won €1,000.

All participants benefited from the platform to network with leading players in the garment industry and learn more about concrete steps for embracing sustainability. Creating true sustainability in the fashion industry means reducing the material flow of clothing, addressing both sustainable production and consumption.

Members of the Jury:
Cristiano Zanetti, Sales Director Italy, Freudenberg Performance Materials
Maurizio Cazzin, Male Modeller, Maison Giorgio Armani
Riccardo Bullio, Apparel Industrial Division Director, Dolce & Gabbana
Caterina Cuoghi, Industrial Director, Area NYC
Simone Bigi, Style and Product Office Manager FAY line, Gruppo TOD’S
Roberto Cibin, Model and Pattern Development Manager, Caruso
Bruno Landi, Sales Director, Vitale Barberis Canonico
Luisella Allegretti, Pattern Designer Boss MW Business Specialist, Hugo Boss
Eugenio Balordi, Product Manager, Maison Margiela
Ettore Pellegrini, Sales and Marketing Manager, Asahi Kasei Fibers Italia

NDA, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry, announced four recipients for the Lifetime Service Award and Lifetime Technical Achievement Awards. Jan O’Regan, Seshadri Ramkumar, Jim Robinson, and Ed Thomas are being recognized for their key contributions to the growth of the nonwovens industry and INDA.

Jan O’Regan: INDA Lifetime Service Award
Jan O’Regan was the Director, Strategic Initiatives and Nonwovens Marketing, for Cotton Incorporated and retired in 2022. In this capacity, she uncovered new opportunities for cotton to bring value into the nonwovens industry. Her work included leading efforts in strategic planning, technical and market project management, and sharing new ideas and results with the global supply chain.
O’Regan spent over four decades in the nonwovens industry in various roles, including sales, marketing, strategic planning and business management. Market responsibilities included consumer and industrial markets on regional, national, and global teams. Over the most recent years, she applied these broad experiences to new markets for cotton in nontraditional applications.
Serving and volunteering with INDA for decades, O’Regan most recently chaired the World of Wipes® committee, which she efficiently organized to produce innovative conferences for the wipes industry.  She was a frequent speaker at INDA, INSIGHT, EDANA, and other events, and for nearly two decades was a go to source of information for cotton fibers in nonwovens and hygiene. O’Regan earned a BS in Textiles and Business, summa cum laude, from Penn State University and an MBA from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

Seshadri Ramkumar: INDA Lifetime Technical Achievement Award
Seshadri Ramkumar has over twenty-five years of experience within the technical nonwovens space, conducting industry leading research and educating nonwovens professionals at Texas Tech University (TTU).  At TTU, he established the Nonwovens Laboratory. Many of Ramkumar’s students have gone on to become technical leaders within their organizations and the nonwovens industry.
Ramkumar has numerous patent and invention disclosures, including Fibertect® toxic chemical decontamination wipes which have been recognized by the American Chemical Society as a notable success of federally supported innovation, endorsed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and adopted by multiple branches of the military.
In addition to many peer-reviewed publications, articles, and columns collectively over 500, including one on nanofibers that has been cited over 2,100 times, Ramkumar has contributed his expertise on the editorial boards of multiple fiber, nonwoven, and textile journals. Ramkumar has also organized conferences for nonwovens and textiles and actively promoted INDA and its technical training offerings for over 20 years.
He is a longtime member of the INDA Technical Advisory Board, been recognized by TAPPI, Society of Dyers and Colorists (UK), the Textile Institute (UK), and the Textile Association (INDIA), and received numerous awards from TTU.
Ramkumar holds a Bachelors of Technology (Textiles), Graduated with Distinction, and a Masters of Technology (Textiles), University First Rank in the Discipline, Anna University, and a Ph.D. (Textile Materials) from the University of Leeds, UK.

Jim Robinson: INDA Lifetime Technical Achievement Award
Jim Robinson has 33 years in the absorbent hygiene industry, including 28 years as a Technical Service Manager at BASF. He led technical teams that focused on the application of superabsorbent polymers (SAP) in hygiene products. Robinson has extensive knowledge of SAP applications, absorbent core formation, and hygiene article design, performance and testing. While with BASF, Robinson led efforts with multiple external companies to provide co-supplier solutions to hygiene converters.
Robinson’s extensive understanding of test methods and test method development led to his coordinating the establishment of fitness for use standards of adult incontinent products with the National Association for Continence and involvement in development and review of absorbent product test methods with INDA/EDANA. He is also an active contributor to INDA’s Technical Advisory Board and Hygienix organizing committee and was a contributing developer in establishing the INDA Absorbent Hygiene Training Course. Robinson has provided numerous presentations at INSIGHT, Hygienix, and RISE on performance and interactions of absorbent system components.
Recently, Robinson has been consulting and contributing to the success of multiple start-ups including those having been nominated for INDA product awards. Robinson has a BS in Chemistry from Hampden-Sydney College and an MS in Chemistry from Duke University.

Ed Thomas: INDA Lifetime Technical Achievement Award
Ed Thomas retired after 39 years, with 32 years in the nonwovens industry, and has remained active teaching the Intermediate Nonwovens Training Course for INDA and The Nonwovens Institute at North Carolina State University, as well as providing consulting services to the industry.
Thomas’ experience includes Process Engineering Manager and Plant Management, DuPont; Technical Director, Reemay; VP of Research and Operations, VP of Operations and Technology, and Global VP of Research and Development for Fiberweb/BBA Nonwovens; and Head of Research and Product Development, First Quality Nonwovens.
Thomas holds 10 U.S. nonwoven patents and he and his teams have been awarded more than 250 patents for numerous and diverse innovations that have played significant roles in the success of the nonwovens industry. These include applications for the global hygiene market, industrial nonwovens, and filtration media.
During his career, Thomas has presented several keynote addresses and papers to industry conferences, participated in North Carolina State University’s Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center (NCRC) prior to it becoming The Nonwovens Institute (NWI), INDA’s Technical Advisory Board, INDA’s Sustainability Committee, and was Vice Chair of NWI’s Industrial Advisory Board prior to retirement and remains an Emeritus member.
Thomas received his mechanical engineering degree from SUNY Buffalo.

Sustainable solutions provider Perstorp has turned its ambitious sustainability targets for 2030 into actionable roadmaps on the corporate level as well as for each of its production plants, outlining hands-on activities to lower greenhouse gas emissions, reduce waste, save fresh water and enable sustainable transformation throughout the value chain.

Over the last year, Perstorp has presented ambitious sustainability targets for greenhouse gas emissions (Scope 1, 2 and 3), as well as for water and waste, to be reached by 2030. The company has now supplemented those targets with roadmaps outlining the steps and actions needed to fulfil them and support customers in reducing their carbon footprint as well as lead Perstorp toward its long-term ambition of becoming Finite Material Neutral.

The largest greenhouse gas emissions are found in Scope 3, which includes raw materials and end-of-life treatment of Perstorp’s products. The Scope 3 roadmap includes the steps necessary to drive the transition of the product portfolio from fossil-based to more sustainable, lower carbon footprint alternatives. This, in turn, will help enable Perstorp’s customers to achieve their own sustainable transition. One key project in this roadmap is Project Air, an initiative aiming to replace all the fossil methanol that Perstorp uses in Europe with methanol produced from residue streams such as carbon capture and utilization (CCU) and renewable sources like biogas. This alone is expected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 500,000 tons per year.

The corporate Scope 1 & 2 targets (direct greenhouse gas emissions from Perstorp´s production plants and purchased energy), as well as the targets for water and waste, have been broken down into local targets and roadmaps, firmly anchored in the specific prerequisites for each production plant.

Initiatives on reducing energy consumption and shifting to energy from non-fossil or recovered sources can, for example, be found in the local roadmaps, while the steps to reach those targets are tailored specifically to each location. Among the planned local activities are also initiatives to replace fresh water used in the production with purified wastewater and to find different ways to reuse and recycle waste from production.

Since 1 April 2023 sales and service of Mayer & Cie. circular knitting machines in Bangladesh have been under new management. A new dynamic team “Mayer Bangladesh” has been formed. Mayer & Cie.’s longstanding Indian representative Batliboi has joined business activities in Bangladesh since the beginning of the month, supported by the team of Brady Services and by Almani Biz.

In Batliboi, Mayer & Cie. has set up a business partner of many decades standing as its representative in Bangladesh. For around 40 years Mumbai-based Batliboi has overseen sales and service of Mayer & Cie. circular knitting machines in India. Abhay Sidham heads Batliboi’s Textile and Machinery Group. He and his team have many years of experience in strategic marketing, and a focus on sustainability and processing recycled raw materials is part of Batliboi’s expertise.

These competences are of relevance in the Bangladesh market because “we face strong competition from Asian manufacturers here,” as Wolfgang Müller, Mayer & Cie.’s sales director, explains. The premium market was growing smaller, and the trend was toward specialities – value-added fabrics, spacer fabrics and athleisure with a high proportion of elastic. Mayer & Cie. sees in these requirements significant potential for its machines – and in Batliboi a partner able in view of its experience to put them to optimal use.

One building block in the set-up of Mayer & Cie. representatives is unchanged. Brady Services will continue with Batliboi to contribute its close ties with the local market. A significant number of existing companies will continue to be looked after by Brady Services.

The new member in Mayer Bangladesh team is Dhaka-based Almani Biz. A lubricants specialist for circular knitting machines Almani Biz has a wide network with Bangladesh knitting industry.

Mayer & Cie. feels well positioned by this new set-up. “We,” Wolfgang Müller says, “are of the opinion that the market for textile machinery in Bangladesh will continue to grow and we are confident that by strengthening our sales, service and marketing team we will be able to make good use of this opportunity.”

Customers in Bangladesh have placed large orders in the past. The latest, placed in January, was for several dozen machines to be delivered this autumn. Further orders from Apex and BEXIMCO (Bangladesh Export Import Company) are also scheduled for delivery in the second half of 2023.

While reorganising the set-up of its representatives in Bangladesh Batliboi has also taken over as Mayer & Cie.’s representative in Nepal, where the company had previously had no local representative. There is a demand for machines for interlock, 8-lock and single jersey, but sales are still in single figures.

Indorama Ventures Public Company Limited (IVL) has joined “Together for Sustainability” (TfS), a global initiative for sustainable supply chains. Indorama Ventures joins a network of 47 TfS member companies representing the global chemical industry, reinforcing its commitment to driving sustainable solutions in its supply chain management.

By joining TfS, Indorama Ventures is encouraging suppliers to meet high sustainability standards, reduce the risk of supply chain disruptions, and improve overall climate maturity. The collaboration will help foster an expansion of the company’s sustainable supply chain program. The company will contribute to the TfS Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) workstream that developed and finetunes the Guideline for calculating Product Carbon Footprints (PCFs) in the chemical industry and beyond and, will develop an IT solution that will enable companies to share PCFs efficiently. This membership allows Indorama Ventures to further align with the UN Global Compact Principles.
 
Through this initiative, Indorama Ventures will also be partnering with EcoVadis to assess their suppliers to identify risks and opportunities along the value chain, improve sustainability practices, and encourage collaboration among members.

Freudenberg Performance Materials Apparel (Freudenberg) launches its biodegradable fusible cotton shirt interlinings range 46xx. With this innovation, the world’s leading specialist in woven, knitted, weft and nonwoven interlinings reduces its impact on the environment and supports customers in achieving their own sustainability objectives. In Asia, the series is marketed under the name 42xx series.

Approved biodegradability and non-toxicity by Hohenstein Laboratories
The new Freudenberg fusible interlinings for shirts and blouses have been developed in such a way that they are harmless to people and the environment at the end of their life cycle. Germany’s independent Hohenstein Laboratories performed biodegradation tests on the 46xx series, based on the Hohenstein method which draws on DIN EN ISO 11721-2:2003 and EN ISO 846, and approved it as biodegradable and ecotoxicologically harmless. The tests by Hohenstein showed no negative effects on either the germination of garden cress nor on earthworms in the acute toxicity test.

Energy-saving interlining
The new biodegradable shirt interlinings also show great potential for energy saving, as the fusing can be performed at a low temperature. Concretely, this means that the resulting temperature between the upper fabric and the shirt interlining during fusing is only 127°C which is significantly lower than the commonly used temperature of 143°C. Certified to OEKO-TEX® STANDARD 100 Class II for successfully testing for no harmful substances, the shirt interlinings are washable at up to 40°C and resistant to dry cleaning. In addition, it has also passed all ecological-toxicological tests and is a perfect end-of-life cycle solution.

Product details and availability
The products in range 46xx are available in Europe in the color white and the following weight classes: 4605 (90g/m2), 4616 (150g/m2) and 4618 (55g/m2). The adhesive of the interlinings consists of a 100% degradable bio-polymer. The shirt interlinings are ideal for reinforcing shirt and blouse collars, cuffs and plackets used in fashion, leisure and business clothing. The biodegradable, non-toxic interlinings are particularly important for labels with an ecologically sustainable claim.

With its new Trend and Event Platform, the Premium Group presents a new concept for a progressive community. According to Premium Group classic trade fair formats are over - this summer it's all about (re)connection, real emotions and new perspectives. The emphasis lies on the most relevant trends and the power of networking, but in a more personalised and intimate way.

PREMIUM and SEEK are focusing on a more rigorous curation of promising brands and collections as well as various opportunities to connect. An extensive content programme of keynotes, round tables, live interviews, study presentations and panels on the most important trends will offer two diverse and time-efficient days. The areas of concentration encompass sustainability, technology, fashion, business, lifestyle, and beauty. The repertoire of topics include marketing themes such as LinkedIn and Tik Tok, new tech tools such as ChatGPT or Virtual Dressing as well as news from the metaverse. Sustainability topics such as denim, circularity, re-commerce, vintage and the new Green Deal laws will be discussed as well as cross-industry topics such as female empowerment, Gen Z and modern leadership.
     
PREMIUM marks the first event of the season for womenswear. New silhouettes, design trends, provocation and the current zeitgeist are brought to the forefront with a carefully curated selection of brands. The fashion scene and visitors can look forward to the best of denim, hyper-femininity, beauty, well-being, future Berlin icons and innovations from the tech and lifestyle sphere. New talents will also have the opportunity to pitch their labels to a professional audience. SEEK focuses on heritage, Y2K, modern sportswear, outdoor and sustainable brands, which will be shown in the CONSCIOUS CLUB. Other highlights will include talks and inspiring activations from the community.

"We listen, research and curate the most important trends for the industry. To do this, our team of experts travels across Europe and exchange ideas with representatives from the entire industry. The results of months of work can be discovered in two days," says Maren Wiebus, Creative Director of the Premium Group.

Today, attention is the most important currency for the fashion industry. This is also why, for the very first time ever, the Premium Group events will take place over only two days instead of three. At the same time, generally accepted norms and rules are questioned, taken apart, and put back together again. The organisers of Premium Group invite fashion professionals to discuss the rules and redefine them together.
 
The summer editions of PREMIUM and SEEK will take place on 11 and 12 July at the new old location Station-Berlin in the heart of Berlin.

Yanfeng has reached another milestone in its sustainability journey by bringing the power of solar energy to its plants in South Africa. The global automotive supplier already uses renewable energy at all its locations in Europe – some of which are already operating with 100% green energy – and now will supplement its operations in South Africa with sustainable and emission-free solar energy generation.

Many sectors are facing major challenges with the transition to a low-carbon economy. The automotive sector in particular faces many operational and economic challenges when transforming production plants into net-zero emission operations. Thanks to its commitment to sustainability, 100% of the solar energy generated by the PV systems is used to power Yanfeng’s production plants in South Africa, helping them save around 2,559 tons of CO2 annually while reducing their monthly costs and increasing efficiencies.

The solar energy systems were funded by SolarAfrica, which will also operate, maintain and monitor the systems going forward. “From the outset of these projects, Yanfeng’s focus was on reducing their CO2 emissions and SolarAfrica is proud to partner with them to make their journey towards sustainability a success,” said David McDonald, CEO of SolarAfrica. “It’s inspiring to see a global company like Yanfeng invest in world-class facilities in South Africa, contributing to our country’s green economy and supporting job creation in the automotive industry.”
 
All Yanfeng European plants were converted to renewable energy by the beginning of 2022. With this new PV system, Yanfeng has implemented a milestone in the conversion to net-zero emission production at its two plants in South Africa.