From the Sector

Hosted outside of Copenhagen for the first time in its 13-year history, on 3 November, Global Fashion Summit assembled over 250 stakeholders representing manufacturers, garment workers, retailers, brands, suppliers, NGOs, policy, and innovators in Singapore and online to spur industry action. The Summit was presented by Global Fashion Agenda (GFA), the non-profit organisation that is accelerating the transition to a net positive fashion industry.
 
The latest edition of the Summit was centred around the theme ‘Alliances for a New Era’, building on dialogues from the June edition in Copenhagen and gathering leaders from across the entire value chain to elevate diverse voices and foster alliances within the fashion industry and beyond, to drive sustainable impact.
 
The Summit’s first international edition facilitated more conversations with manufacturer and supply chain voices to discuss crucial challenges and opportunities around working collaboratively with brands on equal terms. The programme featured bold panels, case studies, masterclasses and leadership roundtables reflecting on topics including ‘Data Scarcity: A Crisis of Measurement?’, ‘Disruption for Better Wage Systems’, ’Community and Circularity’, ‘Connecting the EU Textiles Strategy with the Value Chain’ and ‘Our Energy Transformation Moment’.
 
Attendees heard from over 50 speakers including H.E. Sandra Jensen Landi, Ambassador of Denmark to Singapore & Ambassador-Designate of Denmark to Brunei; H.E. Iwona Piórko, Ambassador of the European Union to Singapore; Anne-Laure Descours, Chief Sourcing Officer, PUMA; Baptiste Le Gal, Chief Revenue Officer APAC, Vestiaire Collective; Christian James Smith, Head of Sustainability Stakeholder Engagement, Zalando; Ninh Trinh, Director of Responsible Sourcing & Sustainability, Target; Roger Lee, CEO, TAL Apparel; Wilson Teo, President, Singapore Fashion Council; Edwin Keh, Chief Executive Officer, The Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel, Ashila Dandeniya, Founder, StandUp Lanka; and more.

Key takeaways and highlights from the event include:

• Global Fashion Agenda announced a new alliance with BBC Storyworks Commercial Productions to launch a film series on BBC.com, which is currently in the early stages of development. The new series will present human-centric stories focusing on both social and environmental sustainability in the fashion industry. It will be released to a wide audience in 2023.
• Federica Marchionni outlined the crucial need for accurate and robust data to substantiate sustainability claims and credentials but acknowledged that the focus on finding ‘perfect’ data cannot be allowed to stifle progress. Global Fashion Agenda will build upon Summit discussions to reflect on how the industry can accurately measure and communicate sustainability performance and illuminate the data credibility challenges.
• The session ‘Establishing circular fashion systems in Cambodia & Vietnam’ outlined the first steps taken by the Global Circular Fashion Forum to establish circular fashion systems in Vietnam and Cambodia with regional stakeholders, government, brand and manufacturer representation.
• Throughout the Summit, the Innovation Forum connected fashion companies with sustainable solution providers. Exhibitors included Better Work , Circular Fashion Partnership, Compreli, Kno Global, Planatones by Noyon Lanka, Redress Design Award and The ID Factory.
• Through conversations such as ‘Disruption for Better Wage Systems’ and ‘Empowering the Worker Majority’, there was a resounding message for people to consider the real people in the value chain. Ensuring dignified livelihoods for these workers should have the same sense of urgency as emissions reductions. 

Piattaforma Sistema Formativo Moda Ente del Terzo Settore renews its commitment in the field of responsible, eco-friendly fashion with a new ad hoc initiative for Fashion Graduate Italia: FASHION SCHOOLS FOR DESIGN - DRIVEN SUSTAINABLE INNOVATION. The project has been set up in a partnership and with the support of C.L.A.S.S. (Creativity, Lifestyle And Sustainable Synergy).

The project “Fashion Schools for Design - Driven Sustainable Innovation” is presented at the eighth edition of the event organised by Piattaforma Sistema Formativo Moda, staged from 3 to 5 November at BASE Milano.

Embracing the theme of this edition of Fashion Graduate Italia, “Sustainable Innovation”, Piattaforma Moda has invited students from fashion schools, academies and associated institutes to participate in a training course regarding the planning and creation of an outfit in compliance with a responsible fashion approach: starting with the design, including the choice of sustainable materials supplied by some of the hub’s partner companies, and also involving a look at the communication strategy for the project.
To create their looks, the selected students followed two training courses organised by C.L.A.S.S.: “Introduction to next-generation Fashion” and “Introduction to smart ingredients”. These courses covered the values of next-generation fashion (integrating sustainability with design and innovation) and the characteristics of innovative and sustainable materials to produce the outfits.
 
The development process of the 11 final looks was followed in person by creative director Olivia Spinelli - Coordination and Creative Direction at IED Moda Milano and member of the Artistic Committee of FGI 2022 - and by tutor Camilla Carrara - founder and zero-waste designer of ZEROBARRACENTO -, the project coordinator of C.L.A.S.S.

The partners of C.L.A.S.S. that contributed by supplying their materials are: Berto, Brunello, Iluna Group, Re.VerSo™ by A. Stelloni Collection by Mapel and Tessitura Grisotto;  IED - European Institute of Design and ZEROBARRACENTO also gave support in the implementation of the initiative.

After two years of joint collaboration and research the Swiss Textile Recycling Project “Texcircle” comes to an end. Partners and stakeholders have worked on the vision of a textile cluster where materials flow in circular loops. The goal of the project was to develop high-quality yarns and products incorporating such a large amount of recycled textiles as possible. In the end, several product prototypes from carpets, socks, and curtains to pullovers, padding and accessories have been developed with at least 50 % recycled fiber up to 80 % recycled fibers and yarns.

Europe has a waste problem of 7.5 million waste of which only 30-35 % is collected and less than 1 % of the textile and clothing worldwide is recycled into textiles and clothing again. It is as well found that around 80 % of the impact of a textile product lies in the design.

Together with the design research expertise of the Lucerne University of Applied sciences and arts, the spinning expertise of Rieter and the sorting and collection expertise of Texaid, systems should be created where products of high quality can be produced of recycled fiber. On board were the expertise of further Cluster partners of Brands, Retailers, and the public sector to see how a joint Cluster and system coukld be established.

The Project Texcircle and cluster is led by the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts – Art  & Design, and in collaboration with Coop, Rieter, Jacob Rohner AG, Ruckstuhl AG, TEXAID as well as workfashion.com ag. Furthermore, Bundesamt für Zivildienst ZIVI, NIKIN AG, and Tiger Liz Textiles are supporting the project. The project is funded by Innosuisse.

Furthermore, collaboration partners from all over Europe contributed to the project to enable these prototypes and systems.

Through joint developments from the design, the collecting, sorting trials, tearing, and spinning trials until the actual production trials and product testing. The partners were able to recycle 2.5 Tons of pre-and post-consumer textile waste into product prototypes with a promising commercial interest. From socks, west, and pullovers to non-woven felts and accessories to carpets and curtains. Through our 2 years of collaboration, the teamcame across several hurdles in the textile recycling value chain which could be tackled. This was a proof of concept that a circular system is possible and the industry now has to enable this at full scale.

• Lenzing becomes partner company of CISUTAC
• New project CISUTAC, co-funded by the EU, shall remove barriers to circularity in the textile industry
• Lenzing will make a contribution in cellulose recycling

The Lenzing Group, a leading provider of specialty fibers for the textile and nonwoven industries, is reinforcing its commitment to circularity by becoming a partner in the CISUTAC (Circular and Sustainable Textile and Clothing) project that is co-funded by the EU. The new consortium was established to support the transition to a circular and sustainable textile sector and, as well as Lenzing, the 27 consortium members include the industry association Euratex, textile company Inditex, PVH, Decathlon and non-governmental organization Oxfam. For its part, Lenzing is focusing on the development of recycling processes for cellulose.
 
CISUTAC aims to remove current bottlenecks in order to enhance textile circularity in Europe. Its goal is to minimize the sector’s total environmental impact by developing sustainable, novel and inclusive large-scale European value chains.

• Carbios’ biorecycling and biodegradation technologies internationally recognized by consumers as promising answers to their top environmental concerns
• Carbios’ innovations considered one of the best for solving recycling effectively and achieving a real plastic circularity
• Consumer research including qualitative and quantitative fields was conducted between March and August 2022. The research institute, Strategic Research, conducted 6000 interviews in Europe and USA

Carbios’ biorecycling and biodegradation technologies acclaimed by consumers
During the first research field study, respondents were exposed to Carbios’ biorecycling process; a new enzyme-based biotechnology that enables biological recycling of all types of PET plastic waste (including bottles, packaging and textiles), and pushes the boundaries of recycling in terms of the number of cycles.

The research results demonstrated that European and US respondents find Carbios’ biorecycling technology more unique and innovative than traditional PET recycling (i.e. thermo-mechanical recycling), as well as more relevant in its ability to address their concerns and challenges regarding recycling.

In the second research study, conducted in the US, respondents were also exposed to Carbios’ biodegradation technology: an innovative enzymatic solution by which an enzyme is incorporated into plastics during the production process of bio-sourced PLA plastics (corn, sugar cane). This approach makes the material made from plants 100% compostable at ambient temperatures and degradable like plants with the built-in enzyme biologically breaking the bioplastic down in less than eight weeks without microplastics or toxic residues; creating a fully organic circularity.

Similarly to Carbios’ biorecycling technology, Carbios’ PLA biodegradation innovation caught US respondents’ attention with 64% overall liking it. Additionally, 93% of the respondents sampled described the concept as innovative, unique, easy to understand (49%), and believable (43%). Up to 82% of the most environmentally engaged respondents declared they would definitely buy more products made with Carbios’ fully circular biodegradable bioplastic.

Consumers: No other choice but to make plastic fully circular
The research says 99% of the respondents consider it important to protect the environment, while plastic pollution is now ranked the third most-concerning environmental issues after climate change and ocean pollution.

This awareness brings most of these consumers to be environmentally active when it comes to purchasing goods and sorting. For the US respondents, eco-friendly packaging comes in the fourth place in terms of purchase drivers for packaged goods and 65% of them declare sorting plastic from general waste on a regular basis, which makes plastic the most sorted type of waste.

Nevertheless, for a vast majority of the respondents across geographies, even if they would like to reduce their plastic consumption most of the time there is no suitable alternative that is as convenient, light, and cost-efficient as plastics. Hence in an ideal world, consumers would like all plastic waste in landfills and oceans to be collected, cleaned, reused and recycled.

Tonello will be unveiling the release of their new, more efficient and more responsible Laundry (R)Evolution, including three tools, at Kingpins Show in Amsterdam, from October 19-20.

Configurator
The new Configurator allows clients to choose the technologies, software, and accessories for their next laundry, combining diverse solutions and thus obtaining a real projection of energy and resource consumption, as well as savings and sustainability benefits.

B.O.P. (Be On Point)
The seamless integration with THE Laser, B.O.P. is based on the most recent developments in Computer Vision It makes positioning laser designs on garments automatic and rapid It allows a choice of different production modes and detects up to 8 garments at the same time.

Metro
Metro is a software that automatically and transparently measures the actual consumption of a laundry, summarizing these figures in each garment’s “environmental passport”.

At the show, Tonello will also demonstrate their technologies by washing the MSP Collection, in collaboration with PVH Europe, Kingpins, and designed by Piero Turk.

Perstorp has been acquired by PETRONAS Chemicals Group Berhad (PCG), Malaysia´s leading integrated chemicals provider and part of PETRONAS Group, on 11 October 2022.

In May this year, PCG signed a Securities Purchase Agreement with Financière Forêt S.à.r.l, a company under PAI Partners, a European private equity firm, to acquire the entire equity interest in Perstorp, a leading sustainability-driven global specialty chemicals company based in Sweden. With the completion of the acquisition, Perstorp is now PCG’s wholly-owned subsidiary.

PCG will strive to ensure the timely completion of Perstorp’s growth projects in a safe and cost-effective manner. Perstorp has several projects lined up in the near future, including the launch of Project Air which aims to reduce carbon emissions through the production of sustainable methanol. Recently, The European Union Innovation Fund selected Project Air, as one of the 17 large-scale green tech projects, which together will be granted more than EUR 1.8 billion. Project Air is a gamechanger for the chemical industry, moving from fossil raw materials to recycled and bio-based feedstock, thereby enabling sustainable chemical products to a large variety of industries and end products. At full capacity, it will reduce global CO2 emissions with close to 500,000 metric tons per year from today’s levels, corresponding to one percent of current emissions in Sweden.

BTMA member Sellers Textile Engineers is marking its 110th anniversary this year with the introduction of a new concept in carpet shearing, as the essential final step in ensuring tuft uniformity and ‘just new’ freshness in finished carpet rolls.

The company has for many years offered two options in the construction of its shearing cylinders – the first, namely the ‘strap-on’, incorporates spiral blades bolted to the cylinder body and the second, known as the ‘caulked-in’, includes spirals which are fixed very securely in a machined groove within the machine.

The new Sellers’ Hybrid Shearing Cylinder combines the benefits of both, resulting in an improved cut and finer finish, in addition to longer repeatable finishing and increased rigidity.

“The Hybrid Shearing Cylinder has all the advantages of the ‘strap-on’ spiral blade to provide a sharper and cleaner cut, along with enhanced rigidity which significantly lengthens the intervals between the necessary regrinding of the blade,” explains Sellers Director Neil Miller. “We currently have six Hybrid Shearing Cylinders operating in the field and the earliest, which has been installed in both No1 Head position, where the majority of the shearing operation and heaviest cut is performed, and also in No3 Head, where the sharper cutting angle has resulted in a much improved surface quality.”

Sellers shearing machines have led the field in carpet finishing for many decades, enabling the leading manufacturers to stay competitive by enabling the highest quality of finish to be achieved economically and efficiently.

The latest advanced features of these machines include a load cell tension control drive system, an automated touchscreen for easy operator control and fault diagnosis, an enhanced cleaning system including cylinder and blade separation and fully controllable pivoting beds. Further options include thickness monitoring, seam detection and metal detection systems.

“The Hybrid Shearing Cylinder will become standard on our latest machines and also be made available for retrofitting, to provide significant benefits to our existing users,” says Miller. “All of our equipment is designed, manufactured, assembled and tested at our plant in the UK, and as one of the few remaining European engineering companies to make all of our components in-house – with now over a century of accumulated know-how – flexibility in design allows our finishing solutions to be targeted to specific customers and their product requirements. Aligned to this is a lead in process control systems which ensure the accurate control, reliability and repeatability of the processing parameters on all of our machines.”

Sellers remains committed to providing complete finishing solutions for all carpet, tile and artificial grass products. Its range includes machines for tufted secondary backing, both conventional, powder and extrusion lamination, Wilton and Axminster products, artificial grass and foam lines, coating lines for bitumen, PVC, PU and other polymers, as well as shearing for all carpet products.

Ongoing developments on the company’s coating and drying lines have resulted in improved guiding and product tension control as well as dryer efficiency, reducing heat loss and optimising energy use. These include a re-design of the fan pressure boxes and impingement nozzles to increase airflow efficiency, modulating gas burners and introducing easy clean, accessible filters.

In addition, the proven dual zone system has been enhanced, giving a temperature differential of up to 80°C between top and bottom zones. Dryers can be heated by either gas or steam and operation and access have been simplified with controls via touchscreen and PLC.

An extensive range of ancillary equipment is available to provide maximum flexibility to cover product requirements, for both new processing lines and as upgrades to existing equipment.

“Carpet manufacturing is now based on well-established, tried and trusted processes and it’s rare for new innovations to be introduced into this sector,” says Jason Kent, CEO of the British Textile Machinery Association. “The new Sellers Hybrid Shearing Cylinder can provide a competitive edge for manufacturers which is currently being proven in the field. It’s one of a number of new innovations the company is planning to showcase at next year’s ITMA exhibition in Milan.”

AkzoNobel provides a Q3 update as high macro-economic uncertainty - especially in Europe and China - led to near historical low consumer confidence. In anticipation, customers and channel partners in the paints and coatings industry are proactively destocking in these regions.
 
The Q3 adjusted operating income is now expected to be in the range of €195 million to €215 million (2021: €241 million), excluding a retroactive impact from hyperinflation accounting regarding Türkiye.
 
Current demand trends are expected to continue in Q4, whilst benefits will come from the company’s own initiatives to reduce costs, improve working capital and ongoing pricing initiatives. While Q3 will see the highest raw material cost impact since the inflation cycle started early 2021, pricing will continue to offset raw material and freight inflation. Overall raw material supply is normalizing and raw material prices are starting to soften broadly.
 
Financial results for Q3 of 2022 will be announced on October 20.

• More ambition and joint European efforts needed

On Friday 30 September, the EU Energy ministers approved a Council Regulation proposal to address high energy prices. The Regulation focusses on the electricity prices and electricity demand reduction, on a solidarity levy from the fossil fuel sector and a retail levy for SMEs. While these initiatives are driven by goodwill, they miss the point of bringing gas prices down – the one measure that would bring the biggest impact on European industry.

EURATEX – as the voice of the European apparel and textiles manufacturers – regrets this lack of ambition: the Regulation does not foresee any meaningful action to directly support the European industry. This can accelerate the de-industrialisation of Europe and loss of industrial capacity to secure the European standard of living and implementing the Green Deal.

“We call on the EU and Member States to pursue our common European interests. The hesitation to adopt a European price cap on natural gas, accompanied by massive national spending programs to subsidise domestic gas consumption, is a dereliction of duty”, said Director General Dirk Vantyghem.

Triggering competition among Member States rather than promoting cooperation in bringing gas prices down for all European companies will also prove ineffective: indeed, the industrial structure in the European Union is fully integrated. Once a segment of the value chain perishes because of the crisis in one country, all companies based in the EU will suffer its negative effect, driving prices up in the supply chain and adding further strain to our operations. The European industry will be saved as a unified industry, or it will not be saved at all. Fragmenting the internal market will not protect any Member State’s domestic manufacturing.

In addition to a EU-wide price cap on gas, EURATEX calls on the European Commission to swiftly amend the Temporary Crisis Framework, making sure the criteria and thresholds applied do not exclude vulnerable companies from possible support (e.g. in textile finishing and services). Euratex also encourages the European Commission to revise the ETS Indirect Carbon Leakage mechanism and include the man-made fibres, non-wovens, spinning and weaving sectors.

It is high time now for the European Union, said the association – in particular for Member States and the Commission – to step up their ambition and adopt a European vision: a chaotic and fragmented approach will not mitigate the crisis but accelerate it.