From the Sector

On the occasion of the State Visit to Italy by Their Majesties The King and Queen of The Netherlands and a Dutch trade delegation led by the Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, Mrs Lilianne Ploumen, the Italian and Dutch fashion and textile industry will join hands.
MODINT, the Dutch association for the Fashion and Textile industries and lead of the fashion mission and Sistema Moda Italia (SMI), the Italian association for the Fashion and Textile supply chain in Italy, have concluded a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which emphasizes the growing interaction between the Dutch and Italian fashion and textile industries.
During the Best of Both Event on Friday June 23rd in Milan, the Minister and a delegation of Dutch and Italian VIP’s and innovators active in the Fashion and Textile industry will witness the signing of a promising Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). The MoU defines actions by MODINT and SMI to help the Dutch and Italian fashion and textile industries work together on recycling, labour standards, sustainable raw materials and domestic production.
Modint and SMI are both members of the International Apparel Federation (IAF), an international organisation that supports industry development by helping to build intelligent connections among its members. In the MoU, Italian and Dutch businesses will explain how they cooperate, how they can support sustainable value chains, how they envision their business growing together in the coming years, and what their respective governments can do to support that growth.

Composites use in Building and Construction will be highlighted at JEC newest event dedicated to this specific Composites Industry next month in Chicago, IL, USA. The numerous and diverse benefits that these innovative materials bring to the Building Industry will help overcome the coming challenges such as, urbanization, increase of natural disasters (floods, storms, tsunamis, earthquakes…), along with the decrease of non-renewable raw materials and the high standard levels set by the society in terms of lightness and fluidity. Composites Materials bring answers and opportunities to tackle those issues in sustainable, durable and reliable manners. Solutions like ease of fabrication (Owens Corning), structures durability (Biteam), anti-seismic reinforcement (DowAksa), use of end-of-life products such as recycled bottles of water (Premier Composites Technologies), aerial forms (Optima Projects Ltd) or again energy saving (Armageddon Energy).

Following its strategy to address every Composites End-user, the JEC Innovation Awards will reward these 6 Composites Innovators in Building & Construction that will change the way we build.
If the majority of submissions relied on glass fibers, which is common in the Construction field, we see an increased interest in carbon fibers, especially for structural applications. And similarly to all sectors of the composite industry, thermoplastics are gaining in importance in Construction. Therefore, to promote the growing use of composites as a construction material, 6 categories are awarded, covering a large panel of applications and possibilities.

“Lenzing stands for a responsible approach to nature. For this reason, we use 100% of the natural resource wood, from the core to the bark – as pulp, bioenergy and biochemicals such as acetic acid”, explains Lenzing CEO Stefan Doboczky. “That is why we are very pleased that our pioneering role with respect to the issue of sustainability has gained worldwide recognition”, Mr. Doboczky adds.

The Lenzing Group produces dissolving pulp at its sites in Lenzing, Austria and Paskov, Czech Republic. All the valuable raw materials are extracted from the wood within the framework of a cascading use. Acetic acid is derived from beech wood in the pulp production process, is recovered in several process steps and processed into high quality, food-grade acetic acid, for example for the food industry. Furfural is a product utilized as a solvent in the refining of lubrication oil, to name one example. Magnesium lignosulfonate is found in animal food or fertilizers.