From the Sector

The Techtextil and Heimtextil Summer Special exhibitions, taking place together in Frankfurt from June 21-24, represent an opportunity for Monforts to showcase its finishing and coating technologies for two of its major markets – especially at a time when energy prices continue to soar for textile manufacturers in Europe.

Existing customers of Monforts include many manufacturers in the field of home textiles, as well as those making geotextiles, automotive fabrics and other functional materials – all of whom will be well represented in Frankfurt this June. Dedicated Montex lines have also been supplied to producers of airbags, flame retardant barrier fabrics and spacer fabrics, as well as high-temperature filter materials.

Energy prices are rising steeply everywhere and a particular emphasis for Monforts in Frankfurt will be on the energy and heat recovery that can be achieved with Montex stenters, through features such as better insulation of the treatment chambers or the MonforClean system, in which waste heat from the drying process is used to pre-heat the drying air resulting in a radical reduction in the conventional heat supply required compared to gas and thermal oil heating. The modular system for heat recovery can also be extended for exhaust air cleaning and odour elimination. Monforts can provide a range of further resource-saving and energy recovery options tailored to each individual line installation including modification of the heating source.

With the Qualitex 800 visualization software, all article-specific settings can be stored and the formulations for thousands of treatment processes called up again at any time. Individual operators can also personalise their dashboards with the most important machine functions and process parameters.

The Qualitex 800 system is available for the automatic and continuous operation of the company’s Montex stenters, as well as its Thermex continuous dyeing ranges, Monfortex shrinking systems and Montex®Coat coating units.

Monforts Montex®Coat coating units serve an equally diverse number of markets, including tents, tarpaulins and awnings, black-out roller blinds and sail cloth, automotive interior fabrics and medical disposables. Full PVC coatings, pigment dyeing or minimal application surface and low penetration treatments and solvent coatings (in explosion-proof conditions) with knife coating, roller coating or screen printing can all be accommodated with this system.

All of these very different materials require coating and finishing for maximum efficiency, using Monforts technologies which provide the ultimate in flexibility and the ability to switch quickly from one fabric run to the next, without compromising on the economical use of energy or raw materials.

The Monforts EcoApplicator offers further potential for sustainably achieving perfect finishes via a precise direct application system, as an alternative to conventional padding – where fabrics are immersed in a bath of the required finishing chemicals. It can significantly further reduce the energy and water required and finishes can be applied on just one side of the fabric, or both, and even separately on each side, to be sealed in place via different heating zones in the stenter.

• Dividend of EUR 4.35 per share approved
• Lenzing Supervisory Board reduced from ten to nine elected members
• Dipl.-Bw. Peter Edelmann steps down from the Supervisory Board at his request
• Cord Prinzhorn, MBA, elected Chairman of the Supervisory Board

The 78th Annual General Meeting of Lenzing AG on April 26, 2022, passed a resolution to pay a dividend of EUR 4.35 per share in accordance with the Managing Board’s profit distribution proposal, which had been approved by the Supervisory Board. As a consequence, the payment of the dividend amounts to a total of EUR 115,492,500. The payment will be made on May 03, 2022.

The Annual General Meeting formally discharged the members of the Managing Board and the Supervisory Board from liability for the 2021 financial year, and set in advance the remuneration for the members of the Supervisory Board for the 2022 financial year. In addition, a vote was hold concerning the principles for the remuneration of the members of the Managing Board and the Supervisory Board (remuneration policy). The remuneration policy of Lenzing AG for the performance-based remuneration of the Managing Board is linked not only to financial performance criteria but also to non-financial sustainability criteria (ESG), which further promote the sustainable business strategy.

Elections to the Supervisory Board
Dipl.-Bw. Peter Edelmann stepped down from the Supervisory Board upon his own request, at the end of the Annual General Meeting. Mr. Edelmann has served as a member of the Supervisory Board since 2018 and as its Chairman since 2019, as well as on all committees of Lenzing AG.

The Annual General Meeting passed a resolution to extend the Supervisory Board mandates of Mag. Patrick Prügger (until the AGM that passes related resolutions concerning the 2022 financial year) and of Dr. Astrid Skala-Kuhmann (until the AGM that passes related resolutions concerning the 2025 financial year).

The Supervisory Board of Lenzing AG now consists of nine members elected by the AGM: Mag. Helmut Bernkopf, Dr. Christian Bruch, Dr. Stefan Fida, Dr. Markus Fürst, Dr. Franz Gasselsberger, Melody Harris-Jensbach, Cord Prinzhorn, MBA, Mag. Patrick Prügger and Dr. Astrid Skala-Kuhmann. Herbert Brauneis, Ing. Daniela Födinger, Helmut Kirchmair, Georg Liftinger und Johann Schernberger were appointed to the Supervisory Board by the Works Council.

At the constitutive Supervisory Board meeting following the AGM, Cord Prinzhorn, MBA, who had returned to the Supervisory Board after serving as CEO on an interim basis, was elected Chairman, and Dr. Stefan Fida was elected Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

The Spanish recycling company Anviplas has been involved in plastics recycling for more than 30 years, during which time it has built up extensive know-how that now benefits customers throughout Europe, in Africa and in Asia. Their cooperation with EREMA is almost as long. Since 1991, Anviplas has relied on the technology and service provided by the Austrian recycling machine manufacturer.

Employing 64 people, Anviplas recycles post-industrial and post-consumer plastic waste, especially HD and LD-PE as well as PP, to make recycled pellets in all colour variations. The production capacity is 1,800 tonnes per month. An EREMA type INTAREMA® 1716 TVEplus® recycling machine with screen changer is in operation at the site in Navarcles (Barcelona) for processing the PP material stream. This patented extruder system was developed for handling difficult-to-process materials, such as heavily printed films as well as very moist waste. This machine is characterised by its optimised 3-stage degassing system; firstly by preheating and predrying the material in the preconditioning unit, secondly because the screw design allows reverse degassing, and thirdly in the degassing zone of the extruder.

Anviplas customers manufacture a huge bandwidth of products made using their recycled pellets. They range from various film products, such as stretch, shrink, mulch and silage films, to irrigation, corrugated and high-pressure pipes, as well as containers such as tubs, bottles, barrels and crates.

In February 2022 the Repeats Group, a pan-European platform for LDPE recycling, and Anviplas announced, that Repeats has made an investment in the Spanish recycling company. For Repeats this investment in Anviplas represents an important step in building a pan-European plastics recycling platform.

• Project delivered on schedule and at budget after two and a half years of construction despite challenges arising from a global pandemic
• New state-of-the-art lyocell plant with a capacity of 100,000 tons will help serve the growing demand for sustainably produced fibers
• Important milestone towards a carbon-free future has been set

The Lenzing Group is pleased to announce the completion of its key lyocell expansion project in Thailand. The new plant, one of the largest of its kind in the world with a nameplate capacity of 100,000 tons per year, started production on schedule and will help to even better meet the increasing customer demand for TENCEL™ branded lyocell fibers. For Lenzing, the project also represents an important step towards strengthening its leadership position in the specialty fiber market and into a carbon-free future.

The construction of the plant located at Industrial Park 304 in Prachinburi, around 150 kilometers northeast of Bangkok, started in the second half of 2019 and proceeded largely according to plan, despite the challenges arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. The recruiting and onboarding of new employees has been successful. Investments (CAPEX) amounted to approx. EUR 400 mn.

“The demand for our wood-based, biodegradable specialty fibers under the TENCEL™, LENZING™ ECOVERO™ and VEOCEL™ brands is growing very well. In Asia in particular, we see huge growth potential for our brands based on sustainable innovation. With the production start of the lyocell plant in Thailand, Lenzing reached an important milestone in its growth journey, supporting our ambitious goal to make the textile and nonwoven industries more sustainable”, said Robert van de Kerkhof, Member of the Managing Board.

In 2019, Lenzing made a strategic commitment to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions per ton of product by 50 percent by 2030. The target is to be climate-neutral by 2050. Due to the established infrastructure, the site in Thailand can be supplied with sustainable biogenic energy and contribute significantly to climate protection.

Together with the key project in Brazil and the substantial investments at the existing sites in Asia, Lenzing is currently implementing the largest investment program in its corporate history (with more than approx. EUR 1.5 bn). Lenzing will continue to drive the execution of its strategic projects, which are to make a significant contri-bution to earnings from 2022.

• Renewable Carbon Initiative (RCI) published a strategy paper on the defossilisation of the chemical and material industry with eleven policy recommendations

The Renewable Carbon Initiative, an interest group of more than 30 companies from the wide field of the chemical and material value chains, was founded in 2020 to collaboratively enable the chemical and material industries to tackle the challenges in meeting the climate goals set by the European Union and the sustainability expectations held by societies around the globe.

RCI addresses the core of the climate problem: 72% of anthropogenic climate change is caused directly by extracted fossil carbon from the ground. In order to rapidly mitigate climate change and achieve our global ambition for greenhouse gas emission reductions, the inflow of further fossil carbon from the ground into our system must be reduced as quickly as possible and in large scale.

In the energy and transport sector, this means a vigorous and fast expansion of renewable energies, hydrogen and electromobility, the so-called decarbonisation of these sectors. The EU has already started pushing an ambitious agenda in this space and will continue to do so, for instance with the recently released ‘Fit for 55’ package.

However, these policies have so far largely ignored other industries that extract and use fossil carbon. The chemical and material industries have a high demand for carbon and are essentially only possible with carbon-based feedstocks, as most of their products cannot do without carbon. Unlike energy, these sectors cannot be “decarbonised”, as molecules will always need carbon. The equivalent to decarbonisation via renewable energy in the energy sector is the transition to renewable carbon in the chemical and derived materials industries. Both strategies avoid bringing additional fossil carbon from the ground into the cycle and can be summarised under the term “defossilisation”.

To decouple chemistry from fossil carbon, the key question is which non-fossil carbon sources can be used in the future. Rapid developments in biosciences and chemistry have unlocked novel, renewable and increasingly affordable sources of carbon, which provide us with alternative solutions for a more sustainable chemicals and materials sector. These alternative sources are: biomass, utilisation of CO2 and recycling. They are combined under the term “renewable carbon”. When used as a guiding principle, renewable carbon provides a clear goal to work towards with sufficient room to manoeuvre for the whole sector. It enables the industry to think out of the box of established boundaries and stop the influx of additional fossil carbon from the ground.

The systematic change to renewable carbon will not only require significant efforts from industry, but must be supported by policy measures, technology developments and major investments. In order to implement a rapid and high-volume transition away from fossil carbon, and to demonstrate its impact, a supportive policy framework is essential. The emphasis should be put on sourcing carbon responsibly and in a manner that does not adversely impact the wider planetary boundaries nor undermines societal foundations. An overarching carbon management strategy is required that also takes specific regional and application-related features into account, to identify the most sustainable carbon source from the renewable carbon family. This will allow for a proper organisation of the complex transition from today’s fossil carbon from the ground to renewable energy and to renewable carbon across all industrial sectors.

RCI has developed eleven concrete policy recommendations on renewable carbon, carbon management, support for the transformation of the existing chemical infrastructure and the transformation of biofuel plants into chemical suppliers. The policy paper “Renewable Carbon as a Guiding Principle for Sustainable Carbon Cycles” is freely available for download in both a short version and a long version.

Link for Download: https://renewable-carbon-initiative.com/media/library/

The current energy crisis is impacting on the competitiveness of the European textile and clothing industry. Because there are limited alternatives to the use of gas in different parts of the production process, production costs increase sharply. EURATEX asks the European Commission and Member States to urgently support the industry to avoid company closures. At the same time, we need a long term vision to move towards climate neutrality, while keeping the T&C industry internationally competitive.

EURATEX presented ten key requirements to Kadri Simson, European Commissioner for Energy, to develop such a vision:

1. The apparel and textile industry needs a safe supply with sufficient green energy (electricity and gas) at internationally competitive prices.
2. The transformation of industry requires access to very significant amounts of renewable energy at competitive costs. Additional investments in infrastructure will also be needed to guarantee access to new renewable energy supplies.
3. Until a global (or at least G 20 level) carbon price or other means for a global level playing field in climate protection are implemented, competitive prices for green energy must be granted at European or national levels (e.g. CCfDs, reduction on levies, targeted subsidies).
4. As the European textile and clothing sector faces global competition mainly form countries/regions with less stringent climate ambitions, it is of utmost importance that the European textile and clothing companies are prevented form direct and indirect carbon leakage.
5. EU-policy should support solutions, e.g. through targeted subsidies (for hydrogen, energy grids, R&D, technology roadmap studies etc.).
6. A dedicated approach for SMEs might be appropriate as SMEs do not have the skills/know-how to further improve their energy efficiency and/or becoming carbon neutral.
7. CAPEX and OPEX support will be necessary for breakthrough technologies, like hydrogen.
8. The Fit-for-55-Package must support the European Textile and Clothing industry in decarbonization and carbon neutrality. The EU must therefore advocate a global level playing field more than before. The primary goal must be to establish an internationally uniform, binding CO2 pricing, preferably in the form of a standard at G-7 / G-20 level.
9. EU-policy must not hinder solutions, e.g. we need reasonable state aid rules (compensating the gap between national energy or climate levies and a globally competitive energy price should not be seen as a subsidy).
10. The European Textile and Clothing industry has made use of economically viable potentials to continuously improve energy efficiency over many years and decades. The obligation to implement further measures must be taken considering investment cycles that are in line with practice. Attention must be paid to the proportionality of costs without weakening the competitive position in the EU internal market or with competitors outside the EU.

Please see the attached position paper for more information.

All of Sateri’s five viscose mills in China have undergone independent evaluation of their social and labour practices, having completed the Higg Facility Social and Labour Module (FSLM) audit and achieved a consistent high score of above 80%.

A member of the RGE group of companies, Sateri is also one of the world’s first viscose producers to have completed the Higg Facility Environmental Module (FEM) assessment, with the similar verified high score of over 80% for all its viscose mills.

Developed by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition, a global, multi-stakeholder non-profit alliance for the fashion industry, the Higg Index is a suite of tools that enables brands, retailers and facilities of all sizes to accurately measure and score a company or product’s sustainability performance.

The FSLM tool of the Higg Index holistically assesses working conditions of the mills, including fair wages and compensation, health & safety, respectful treatment of employees etc; while the FEM tool focuses more on environmental performance, including energy consumption, greenhouse gas missions, water use, chemical and waste management.

During the 22^nd annual Connect conference at the Wynn Las Vegas Resort, Electronics For Imaging, Inc. is highlighting digital print innovations, that give print businesses more capability and profit potential in a range of market applications. Display graphics inkjet offerings at Connect from the company’s leading-edge product portfolio include the new EFI™ Pro 30h production printer. Plus, Connect features the first-ever live demonstration of the new EFI Fiery^® FS500 Pro digital front end (DFE) – the most-advanced print server in EFI’s 30+ year history – and the debut of the EFI Fiery Impress™ DFE, a scalable, flexible server and colour management solution for inkjet label and packaging applications as well as for inline manufacturing lines that need variable print.
                                               
EFI Connect has more than 130 break-out sessions presenting the latest tips and trends across all the industry segments EFI supports. This includes sessions addressing the growing analogue-to-digital transformation opportunities using EFI’s industrial Corrugated & Packaging, Textile, and Building Materials/Décor solutions.
 
EFI Connect also marks the debut of an innovative prepress product for display graphics businesses, EFI Fiery Prep-it™ software for the preparation, layout, and automated production of print-for-cut jobs. Designed to address productivity needs amid continued labour shortages, this powerful and cost-saving true-shape nesting solution reduces the time needed to nest complex objects for wide-format printing by up to 90%. Compared with competing products, Fiery Prep-it software also reduces media usage by 10% or more, helping to alleviate media supply constraints. With the media savings it generates, this affordable, effective software can pay for itself in four months or less, helping print shops become more competitive.

• More than 30 leading pioneers of the chemical and material sector welcome the latest political papers from Brussels, Berlin and Düsseldorf

The political situation for renewable carbon from biomass, CO2 and recycling for the defossilisation of the chemical and materials industry has begun to shift fundamentally in Europe. For the first time, important policy papers from Brussels and Germany take into consideration that the term decarbonisation alone is not sufficient, and that there are important industrial sectors with a permanent and even growing carbon demand. Finally, the need for a sustainable coverage of this carbon demand and the realisation of sustainable carbon cycles have been identified on the political stage. They are elemental to the realisation of a sustainable chemical and derived materials industry.

The goal is to create sustainable carbon cycles. This requires comprehensive carbon management of renewable sources, which includes carbon from biomass, carbon from Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) – the industrial use of CO2 as an integral part – as well as mechanical and chemical recycling. And only the use of all alternative carbon streams enables a true decoupling of the chemical and materials sector from additional fossil carbon from the ground. Only in this way can the chemical industry stay the backbone of modern society and transform into a sustainable sector that enables the achievement of global climate goals. The Renewable Carbon Initiative’s (RCI) major aim is to support the smart transition from fossil to renewable carbon: utilising carbon from biomass, CO2 and recycling instead of additional fossil carbon from the ground. This is crucial because 72% of the human-made greenhouse gas emissions are directly linked to additional fossil carbon. The RCI supports all renewable carbon sources available, but the political support is fragmented and differs between carbon from biomass, recycling or carbon capture and utilisation (CCU). Especially CCU has so far not been a strategic objective in the Green Deal and Fit-for-55.

This will change fundamentally with the European Commission's communication paper on “Sustainable Carbon Cycles” published on 15 December. The position in the paper represents an essential step forward that shows embedded carbon has reached the political mainstream – supported by recent opinions from members of the European parliament and also, apparently, by the upcoming IPCC assessment report 6. Now, CCU becomes a recognised and credible solution for sustainable carbon cycles and a potentially sustainable option for the chemical and  material industries. Also, in the political discussions in Brussels, the term “defossilation” is appearing more and more often, complementing or replacing the term decarbonisation in those areas where carbon is indispensable. MEP Maria da Graça Carvahlo is among a number of politicians in Brussels who perceive CCU as an important future industry, putting it on the political map and creating momentum for CCU. This includes the integration of CCU into the new Carbon Removal Regime and the Emission Trading System (ETS).

As the new policy documents are fully in line with the strategy of the RCI, the more than 30 member companies of the initiative are highly supportive of this new development and are ready to support policy-maker with data and detailed suggestions for active support and the realisation of sustainable carbon cycles and a sound carbon management. The recent political papers of relevance are highlighted in the following.

Brussels: Communication paper on “Sustainable Carbon Cycles”
On 15 December, the European Commission has published the communication paper “Sustainable Carbon Cycles” . For the first time, the importance of carbon in different industrial sectors is clearly stated. One of the key statements in the paper is the full recognition of CCU for the first time as a solution for the circular economy, which includes CCU-based fuels as well. The communication paper distinguishes between bio-based CO2, fossil CO2 and CO2 from direct air capture when addressing carbon removal and it also announces detailed monitoring of the different CO2 streams. Not only CCU, but also carbon from the bioeconomy is registered as an important pillar for the future. Here, the term carbon farming has been newly introduced, which refers to improved land management practices that result in an increase of carbon sequestration in living biomass, dead organic matter or soils by enhancing carbon capture or reducing the release of carbon. Even though the list of nature-based carbon storage technologies is non-exhaustive in our view, we strongly support the paper’s idea to deem sustainable land and forest management as a basis for the bioeconomy more important than solely considering land use as a carbon sink. Surprisingly, chemical recycling, which is also an alternative carbon source that substitutes additional fossil carbon from the ground (i.e. carbon from crude oil, natural gas or from coal), is completely absent from the communication paper.

Berlin: Coalition paper of the new German Government: “Dare more progress – alliance for freedom, justice and sustainability”
The whole of Europe is waiting to see how the new German government of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals will shape the German climate policy. The new reform agenda focuses in particular on solar and wind energy as well as especially hydrogen. Solar energy is to be expanded to 200 GW by 2030 and two percent of the country's land is to be designated for onshore wind energy. A hydrogen grid infrastructure is to be created for green hydrogen, which will form the backbone of the energy system of the future – and is also needed for e-fuels and sustainable chemical industry, a clear commitment to CCU. There is a further focus on the topic of circular economy and recycling. A higher recycling quota and a product-specific minimum quota for the use of recyclates and secondary raw materials should be established at European level. In the coalition paper, there is also a clear commitment to chemical recycling to be found. A significant change for the industry is planned to occur in regards to the so-called “plastic tax” of 80 cents per kilogram of non-recycled plastic packaging. This tax has been implemented by the EU, but most countries are not passing on this tax to the manufacturers and distributors, or only to a limited extent. The new German government now plans to fully transfer this tax over to the industry.

Düsseldorf: Carbon can protect the climate – Carbon Management Strategy North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW)
Lastly, the RCI highly welcomes North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW, Germany) as the first region worldwide to adopt a comprehensive carbon management strategy, a foundation for the transformation from using additional fossil carbon from the ground to the utilisation of renewable carbon from biomass, CO2 and recycling. For all three alternative carbon streams, separate detailed strategies are being developed to achieve the defossilisation of the industry. This is all the more remarkable as North Rhine-Westphalia is the federal state with the strongest industry in Germany, in particular the chemical industry. And it is here, of all places, that a first master plan for the conversion of industry from fossil carbon to biomass, CO2 and recycling is implemented. If successful, NRW could become a global leader in sustainable carbon
management and the region could become a blueprint for many industrial regions.

During an expansive, three-day Electronics For Imaging, Inc. open house this month at the company’s EFI™ Reggiani industrial textile printer facility, textile and apparel manufacturers witnessed first-hand the market-leading innovations that provide users with new opportunities. The December open house, which drew more than 70 attendees from over 23 different European, South American, and Middle Eastern countries, featured informative sessions with product experts on a diverse range of topics, covering new and trending market applications for textile manufacturers.

Attendees witnessed live demonstrations of eight advanced digital printers during the open house, including the new EFI Reggiani HYPER, EFI Reggiani TERRA Silver scanning/multi-pass printer, and EFI Reggiani BLAZE as well as the EFI Reggiani BOLT – the award-winning single-pass offering that is the one of the fastest digital textile printers.

EFI Reggiani HYPER – a fast scanning digital printer
The new EFI Reggiani HYPER is a scanning printer available in 1.8-metre, 2.4-metre or 3.4-metre widths. The Reggiani HYPER model targets the industrial high-speed segment of the multi-pass textile printing sector.

With an up to eight-colour configuration, it prints at speeds up to 13 linear metres per minute in two-pass production mode. The new printer is suitable for high-quality production on knitted or woven fabrics and is designed with smart technology that enables it to be integrated into Industry 4.0 projects.

Sustainable direct-to-textile printing with the EFI Reggiani TERRA Silver
The new-version TERRA Silver printer is part of EFI’s complete TERRA line-up of pigment ink printer solutions. It allows print service providers to enter the world of industrial textile with a short, smart and green production process.
The printer also features:

• A new recirculating ink system for superior reliability and minimum maintenance
• Several printing modes to ensure maximum flexibility in terms of design capability
• New, real-time image processing that eliminates time spent in image pre-calculations
• A user friendly, intuitive interface
• A more-efficient polymerisation process that takes place as printed textile goes through the printer’s on-board dryer.

EFI Reggiani BLAZE, an ideal entry solution for industrial textile printing
The EFI Reggiani BLAZE printer is designed to give textile companies the opportunity to enter the digital textile printing market with a compact solution. The new, 1.8-metre-wide printer offers an innovative, low-maintenance, continuous recirculation ink system equipped with a level sensor and degassing as well as a print head crash protective system for longer printhead life and superior uptime.

The upgraded EFI Reggiani BOLT – one of the fastest digital textile printers
In 2021, the EFI Reggiani BOLT received a combination of hardware and software enhancements that minimise artifacts, compensating for missing nozzles that may occur over time and enhancing uniformity to deliver smoother solid colours. The upgrade also delivers improved quality and smoother gradients, plus it enables faster printhead replacement and drastically increases file processing speed by up to 200% for large, complex files.