From the Sector

Lectra supports the transformation of fashion, automotive and furniture companies by providing them with technological solutions that accelerate their transition to a more efficient and more sustainable Industry 4.0. In February, as part of the launch of its new roadmap, Lectra confirmed the importance of CSR in its strategy and presented its new priority measures for 2023-2025. By joining the UN Global Compact, Lectra demonstrates its commitment to reaching the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

Over the last few years, Lectra has stepped up its CSR initiatives. In 2011, the company implemented a CSR purchasing charter that covered 98% of its industrial purchases in 2022, excluding Gerber Technology (which was acquired in June 2021). In 2023, the new version of our CSR purchasing charter will be extended to Gerber suppliers, with the objective of enrolling 90% of all our industrial suppliers by 2025. Lectra also favors local procurement and production, as demonstrated by the recent inauguration of its manufacturing facility in Tolland, United States.

Another example: knowing that textiles generate 90% of the CO₂ emissions produced during the total lifecycle of a cutting room, Lectra strives to offer its customers solutions that optimize the use of materials. Lectra's equipment makes it possible to achieve material saving of 5 to 10%. In addition, to better inform consumers about product authenticity and provenant, the company has also expanded its software offer to material traceability, as show by the recent majority acquisition of TextileGenesis’ capital. Lectra is committed to systematically using eco-design principles by 2025 for its new equipment platforms in order to reduce its environmental footprint.

For 2023-2025, Lectra has decided to focus on 5 key areas through 12 measures:

1. MEETING THE HIGHEST ETHICAL STANDARDS
   - Uncompromising business ethics
   - Extension of our CSR purchasing policy
2. DESIGNING ECO-RESPONSIBLE OFFERS
   - Developing eco-designed products and services
   - Supplying products and services that help reduce our customers’ impact on the environment
   - Developing safe, accessible and easy-to-use solutions
3. FOSTERING AN INCLUSIVE, DIVERSE AND STIMULATING WORKING CULTURE
   - Zero tolerance for discrimination and harassment and equal opportunities for everyone
   - A working environment conducive to employee engagement
   - Balance between work and private life
   - Sustainable development of talents, team expertise and professional careers
   - Employees’ health and safety
4. REDUCING THE ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINT OF OUR ACTIVITIES
   - Reducing the environmental impact of our company's activities
5. SUPPORTING FUTURE GENERATIONS
   - Supporting the development of professional skills and the employability of future generations

adidas and Bogey Boys are introducing the adidas x Bogey Boys collection featuring crisp designs and high-quality performance materials that combine vintage styles from golf and tennis with a modern feel, all for easy on- and off-course wear. The limited-edition capsule featuring apparel and footwear for men and women will be available at select locations beginning Wednesday, June 14.

The adidas x Bogey Boys capsule introduces classic, clean, and sporty designs that give golfers the chance to express their style.  In refined white, altered blue and collegiate green colorways, pieces from the collection include:

• Two four-button placket polos with a higher collar stand
• A striped silhouette as well as a solid pique option with piping at cuffs and chest pocket
• Terry cloth track suit (jacket and pants) with white 3-Stripes detailing and adidas x Bogey Boys branding
• V-neck sweater vest in collegiate green with checkered white and green contrasting across the shoulders and small contrast lines running through rib hem and armholes
• Straight-leg trouser made with adidas’ WARPKNIT material featuring pintuck detail down front and back legs along with piping around pockets for a crisp finish
• Terry cloth romper with zip-front pockets, elastic waistband with pin buckle, back-right welt pocket and contrast white binding at armhole and leg opening
• High-waisted skirt that features a side-zip opening, front and back seams with kick pleats, triangle pocket inserts with piping detail, and zipper pocket back-center and adidas’ WARPKNIT material
• Playful graphic tee that includes a 'Welcome to the Clubhouse' message on the back featuring characters dressed in pieces of the collection sketched by Macklemore and the adidas team.

There will be a handful of accessories to complement the range including a five-panel rope hat, leather golf glove, and leather travel bag featuring croc texture with metal feet and hardware.

Fong’s Europe will showcase the advanced features of its THEN Smartflow TSF at ITMA 2023.

These include the machine’s smart fabric transport system which ensures extremely even dyeing of the fabric through accurate control of the nozzle pressure and pump power, with movement through the machine via an PLC-controlled plaiting system and variable chamber adjustment depending on fabric characteristics.

The machine is equipped with a heat exchanger enabling it to heat the dyeing liquor quickly and efficiently, to reduce energy consumption. Its bath preparation unit and chemical dosing system ensure accurate and precise dosing of chemicals, dyestuff and salt, reducing chemical waste and optimising results while reducing process times.

The Smartflow TSF operates with a low liquor ratio of down to 1:2.5 with full loading of synthetic fabrics, which means that it requires less water to dye a given amount of fabric compared to traditional dyeing machines. This not only reduces the consumption of water and steam, but also the amount of wastewater generated.

The machine's control panel is easy to use, allowing operators to programme and monitor processes with ease.

At ITMA 2023 in Milan from June 8-14, BTMA member VeriVide will introduce UltraView – its first all-LED light booth for achieving a new level of consistent and standardised colour assessment.

The company’s light booths and lighting cabinets are specified by major global retailers around the world, who rely on them for establishing and maintaining visual quality standards across their supply chains.

This is no easy feat, given the textile industry’s complex structure and the many process stages each individual garment undertakes from the designer’s desk to the finished garment on the retail shelf – often criss-crossing several continents during the journey.

Benefits
UltraView brings a range of sustainable new benefits to designers, mills and brands, and combined with VeriVide’s successful DigiEye system for non-contact colour measurement and digital imaging, can have a positive impact on a company’s bottom line, bringing savings in time, money and CO₂ emissions.

The new all-LED light booth meets all relevant international lighting and colour assessment standards. The UltraView incorporates the company’s A rated CIE D65 and CIE D50 artificial daylight light sources and includes multiple pre-set point of sale light sources while being fully tuneable for recalibration to the individual requirements of each customer. In the past, individual light booths have had to be dedicated to the stipulated settings of each specific customer’s switch sets. The rapid flexibility of UltraView, however, makes the need for multiple light booths a thing of the past.

It also eliminates the need for the regular bulb changes that were necessary with fluorescents, to provide significant energy savings.

As supply chains continue to move towards digitisation away from time-consuming and expensive physical sampling, a version of the UltraView, VisionView, is available with an internal monitor to enable physical samples to be compared with their digital versions, if required.

DigiEye
For non-contact colour measurement and digital imaging, VeriVide’s DigiEye collects and processes data that can be communicated and shared instantly, enabling manufacturers, producers and processors to speed up quality control, sustain product integrity and reduce waste.

DigiEye also overcomes the limitations of spectrophotometers, which are limited to products with a solid colour appearance and can only measure ‘average’ colour, assessing the limited area of the product exposed in the instrument’s aperture.

These limitations are further compounded if the product has any form of multi-coloured characteristics or appearance, an uneven or inconsistent surface, a colour area too small to be captured by the instrument or any sort of surface effect, such as carpet pile and the sheen of satin and silk.

Carbios has been selected among the 22,000 start-ups in the French Tech ecosystem to represent French innovation at the 6th “Choose France” Summit.  “Choose France” is an international business summit dedicated to the attractiveness of France launched at the initiative of Emmanuel Macron, the President of the Republic. Only ten companies, including Carbios, have been chosen to exhibit their technologies at the Château de Versailles.  On this occasion, Carbios announces that it has joined the Coq Vert community launched by Bpifrance in partnership with ADEME^[1] and the Ministry of Ecological Transition, to connect with other environmentally committed business leaders and advance its international deployment.

“With INRAE^[2], we chose to highlight Carbios at the Choose France summit as a symbol of French economic dynamism,” comments Philippe Gassmann, Secretary General Choose France 2023 (French Treasury). ” With its innovative “Made in France” biotechnologies that bring plastic into the circular economy, Carbios illustrates the wealth of  innovation within the French cleantech ecosystem.  I thank Carbios for its ambassadorship for this ecosystem to the 200 foreign guests attending the 6th Choose France Summit with the theme: Investing for a sustainable future.”

“Carbios is honored to have been selected by the Elysée Palace for Choose France.  This international summit provides an opportunity for meetings between the President of the Republic, members of the Government and the leaders of major foreign and French companies to discuss France’s economic ambitions and attractiveness,” commented Emmanuel Ladent, Chief Executive Officer of Carbios. “Carbios is in the midst of a major industrial rollout, with a first plant planned in the Grand Est region, and the international commercial deployment of our processes.  We are very grateful for the French Government’s support at this strategic time for the company.”
(Emmanuel Ladent, CEO, and Alain Marty, Chief Scientific Officer, representing Carbios at Choose France)

The Coq Vert community
Launched by Bpifrance, in partnership with ADEME and the Ministry of Ecological Transition, this community brings together 2,000 members who are players in sustainable development and are convinced of the need to act for energy and ecological transition.

^[1] ADEME = The French Agency for Ecological Transition
^[2] INRAE = France’s National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment

Die CHT Group, a worldwide company for chemical specialties, has built a new production facility in Meghna Industrial Economic Zone (MIEZ), Narayanganj which was inaugurated on May 9th, 2023.

Martin Stangs, Regional Sales Manager APAC Auxiliaries at CHT says: “The long-term success story with RH Corporation now comes to an even higher level. In addition to the decade-long service provided by motivated colleagues of RH Corporation and constant visits by well-experienced CHT application field colleagues, CHT products will now be made available locally by our new production facility at CHT Bangladesh. This will further enhance our current high-end offer with in-time deliveries which are now possible. The well-known services provided by our up-to-date laboratory facility in Dhaka will continue to prevail. This is all supported by the profound analytical and technical equipment at CHT Germany as well as CHT Switzerland. Less water, less energy, less time, but still “fit-for-purpose performance”: these requirements are no strangers to us. In alignment with our CHT Group policy ‘We take care’, we will solve these problems, too”.

Sustainability is anchored at CHT Group and plays an important role in Bangladesh, too. The new facility of the CHT Group in Bangladesh contributes to sustainability in more ways: The roofs of two buildings are fully covered with solar photovoltaic modules. For a proper use of natural light all the other buildings have periphery glass and transparent roofs There are additionally a ground water tank to harvest rainwater as well as a biological effluent treatment plant to reuse treated water as process water in the plant.

At ITMA 2023, XORELLA, a specialist in steam setting and conditioning equipment for yarns and fabrics, will launch XO AUTOMATION for the double door XO SELECT conditioning machine series, and XO SOLID, a new machine series to complement XO SMART, XO TREND and XO SELECT machines.

XO AUTOMATION
The new XO AUTOMATION system consists of roller conveyor systems for loading and unloading two-door XO Select conditioning machines. Additional pallet wrapping machine with a turntable, weighting station, label printer, safety fence and security system can complete the system. The XO Select controller and automation system can handle and store individual customer-specific material and packing programmes.  

XO SELECT and XO AUTOMATION are designed for yarn steaming on multiple pallet dimensions and heights up to 2,650mm. The linear material flow passing conveyor and steaming machine avoids any mix between steamed and un-steamed materials. XO AUTOMATION fills the gap between the XO automated moving platform and the fully automated transport system – from spinning hall to warehouse.

XO SOLID
The new cubical XO SOLID combines a high loading space of 1,800mm x 1,700mm x 4, 000mm (H x W x L) through double row pin trolleys or pallets for easy manual loading of six units on floor level without a pit or platform. XO SOLID is therefore designed for installations on upper floor levels. The new frame design combines all necessary components factory preinstalled on a single frame, for easy ‘plug and play’ installation at the customer site. Additional smaller steamer dimensions for two and four loading units are also at the planning stage.

The new XO SOLID incorporates all the renowned features of XORELLA machines based on the long term experience in high temperature dyeing vessel production of FONG’s, including:

• A Siemens controller with OPC UA interface and XO data tool for batch storage.
• A XO EcoPac waterless claw pump or two-stage water ring vacuum pump.
• A high energy efficient accumulator for steam, electric and combined heating.
• Vessel and piping in world-class stainless steel.
• European key components such as pumps, heating elements, valves and sensors

Established in Switzerland in 1967, XORELLA became known in the global textile industry for its innovative indirect steaming system. Since 2002 the company has been a member of the CHTC Fong’s International Group, and a member of SINOMACH Group (China National Machinery Industry Corporation) since 2019.

adidas TERREX announces a multi-season collaboration with National Geographic, consisting of high-performance outdoor wear. The inaugural collection is built to celebrate the role of photography in the culture of outdoor sport - as well-equipped hikers turn their ability to explore more places, and spirit of adventure, into stunning content.

To celebrate this relationship, designers at adidas TERREX combed the National Geographic photography archives for stunning stills of some of the most remote yet moving locations on earth, integrated in unique all over prints in a bold new hiking collection. All pieces are unified by National Geographic’s iconic yellow icon.

Places celebrated in the collection include a snow-covered sandstone monocline in Comb Ridge, Utah, a 120-mile-long, north to south stretch that defines the State’s red rock landscape, as well as textured portraits of shale, - captured on the coast of Norway’s northernmost county - highlighting the sedimentary rock’s distinctive formations.

The 51-piece collection includes women’s, men’s, and gender-neutral offerings – all built to equip the wearer in multi-terrain environments:

• A part of the collection is the RAIN.RDY Jacket; a 2.5L waterproof and seam-sealed outer garment built to facilitate epic adventures. The men’s jacket features a bold print of the shell formations in the Porsanger Peninsula, Norway, while the women’s is inspired by stills of White Sands National Park in New Mexico.
• A long sleeve shirt is finished with the bold National Geographic yellow icon and reflective details.
• The TERREX Swift R3 GORE-TEX Hiking shoes offer the peak combination of a lightweight construction and cushioning as seen in trail running shoes with the stability of a hiking boot. Finished in a print inspired by a stunning aerial shot of Earth, the hiking shoes come with a GORE-TEX lining and membrane seal so water is kept out, and a Continental™ Rubber outsole for optimal grip in wet or dry conditions.
• The WIND.RDY: GET SHELTERED Jacket, with wind-resistant technology and a water repellent ripstop fabric, allows explorers to feel protected and confident in many weather conditions. The men’s and women’s versions come with bold prints inspired by photography including that of sandstone and snow at Comb Ridge, Utah. Smart design features including a bungee-cord enabled adjustable hem, a lightweight fabric and reflective details. Additionally, it features a bold new lenticular logo design that alternates between Terrex and National Geographic from different perspectives – and is made in part with recycled materials.

A little over three years have passed since RadiciGroup announced the acquisition of Zeta Polimeri, an Italian company headquartered in Buronzo (VC) with over 30 years' experience in the recovery of pre- and post-consumer synthetic fibres and thermoplastic materials. Today, the company has become a full member of the Group with its new name Radici EcoMaterials Srl.

The new company’s long-standing know-how, combined with RadiciGroup’s as a whole, will create a virtuous production system that recovers worn-out materials (fabric, yarn and granules), or otherwise unusable materials, and processes them into raw materials available for other production cycles by taking advantage of industrial synergy.

Radici EcoMaterials is a strategic production site because it handles all the preliminary recovery stages: the sorting, processing and pre-treatment of materials, including those used for the production of post-consumer yarns and engineering polymers. In this sense, Radici EcoMaterials is in line with the most recent European policies on sustainable textiles, which address minimizing the share of materials destined for disposal sites, favouring instead more structured recycling solutions.

Radici EcoMaterials is also GRS certified. GRS certification ensures the complete traceability of its materials, which are made in a safe plant that meets the highest environmental and social certification standards.

The company is also equipped with a photovoltaic system and, for the portion of its energy needs not covered by the photovoltaic source, it partially relies on renewable energy. The goal is to use 100% green energy in the next few years, in accord with RadiciGroup's goals.

• Oerlikon takes leadership position in luxury metalware

Oerlikon has successfully closed the acquisition of Riri, following the signing of the agreement announced on December 16, 2022.

Riri is a provider of coated metal accessories for the luxury fashion industry. This deal is the strategic next step to complement Oerlikon’s acquisition of Coeurdor in 2021. It expands Oerlikon’s foothold in the luxury market and together creates a leading platform in luxury metalware. As the demand for PVD coatings grows, Oerlikon’s PVD technologies that provide environmentally friendly solutions will accelerate the shift of the luxury goods industry to greener PVD technology.

Renato Usoni, CEO of Riri, will lead the newly formed luxury business unit of Oerlikon as President Oerlikon Luxury. Riri will operate as a separate business within the Surface Solutions division. Its zippers and buttons will continue to use the Riri and Cobrax brands on individual products. Oerlikon will consolidate Riri as of March 1, 2023.