From the Sector

DOMO Chemicals, a global leader in polyamide-based engineered material solutions and services, has published its latest annual Sustainability Report, detailing progress on its sustainability journey, including notable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. DOMO’s mission is to engineer polyamide solutions that contribute to a better, more sustainable world. In publishing its second annual Sustainability Report, DOMO enters a new phase in its decarbonization quest, with confidence in its long-term aspiration to set the standard for sustainability in the industry by 2030.

Notably, the Sustainability Report details DOMO’s achievements in 2022 toward realizing its 2030 sustainability goals. In terms of decarbonization and broader environmental achievements, against a 2019 baseline, the company:

• Reduced scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 27%, making significant progress toward its target of 40% reduction by 2030 and carbon neutrality by 2050
• Increased renewable electricity throughout operations to 12%
• Reduced waste by 24%
• Lowered water intake by 4.5%

In addition, as a provider of polyamide-based sustainable and circular solutions, DOMO:

• Achieved more than 11% of engineered materials sales based on sustainable feedstock, making excellent progress toward its 2030 target of 20%
• Allocated 25% of research and development resources to enhanced recycling

Moreover, fostering talent and ensuring the well-being of its workforce as a responsible employer is essential for sustainable growth, and 2022 highlights include:

• Increased share of women in senior positions from 22% in 2021 to 30% in 2022
• Providing a safe and inclusive working environment that encourages personal and professional development as well as a global safety culture

Bangladesh will stage the world’s first climate conference for the fashion industry this autumn, on 12 October. The Bangladesh Climate Action Forum will convene policy makers, garment manufacturers, fashion retailers and other industry stakeholders to look at solutions for decarbonising global textile supply chains.

The event will focus on technological and financial challenges around reducing emissions. Most of the world’s leading fashion brands have now set ambitious targets for reducing supply chain emissions. These targets relate to 2030 by which time many brands aim to reduce emissions by 50 per cent, and 2050 where most fashion brands aim to be carbon neutral.

The Bangladesh Climate Forum Action will examine causes of climate crisis, its urgency, impacts we have already seen, and what we can expect under both businesses as usual and rapid decarbonisation scenarios.

Also presenting at the event will be the Government of Bangladesh, which will address Bangladesh’s actions to mitigate the impacts of the climate crisis. Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate change and is ranked the seventh extreme disaster risk-prone country in the world according to a report from the Global Climate Risk Index 2021. Tropical cyclones, tornadoes, floods, coastal and riverbank erosion, droughts and landslides are the major climate-induced hazards in Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh Climate Forum Action will also look at approaches towards decarbonization, including NetZero goals and timelines. Speakers will discuss globally recognised pathways for electricity/transportation/industry decarbonisation.

Renewable energy will also be under discussion. If fashion brands are to hit climate targets, it is imperative that supply chains switch to renewable energy and away from gas and fossil fuels. The event will look at challenges around the de-carbonisation of the electricity grid in Bangladesh, as well as the rate of transition toward renewable resources by garment factories, including solar power.

A key element of the event will be evaluation of practical solutions for Bangladesh’s RMG industry. It will profile specific solutions such as energy efficiency, machine upgrades, the electrification of thermal loads, direct power purchase agreements and biomass fed thermal systems. It will also discuss the challenges faced in the industry including business climate (and cycles), pricing, financing challenges, target setting and execution, policy opportunities, knowledge gaps and availability/scaling of solutions.

Financial challenges around decarbonisation of supply chains are significant, and it is far from clear who will pay for the technological upgrades required. While some investment support systems exist – such as lower interest financing – these are not always available, accessible or affordable for the majority of the RMG companies.

The event will explore financial options, changes to business/pricing models, opportunities for de-risking/underwriting investments, direct investment and other tools that need to emerge to address financial challenges and plug the funding gap. The event will also explore opportunities to decouple climate action from business cycles so that the 2030 targets can be met.

The Sorting for Circularity USA consortium project welcomes new partners and expands its North American geographical scope. Fashion for Good is pleased to announce the addition of lululemon as an external brand partner, joining the existing seven brand partners. They also welcome their new implementation partners Helpsy, United Southern Waste Material, Goodwill Industries International Inc., and its members Goodwill of Colorado, Goodwill Industries-Suncoast, Inc., Goodwill of the Finger Lakes, and Goodwill of San Francisco Bay. Additionally, Fashion for Good is pleased to recognise adidas as the project's lead sponsor, facilitating the complete realisation of the project scope.

Fashion for Good, together with Resource Recycling Systems, launched the Sorting for Circularity USA consortium project in January 2023. The project will conduct an extensive consumer survey to map the journey of a garment from closet to end of use, and present a comprehensive snapshot of textile waste composition generated in the United States. The insights gained from this 18-month project will help to scale collection, sorting, and recycling innovations and inform decisions on necessary investments and actions.

Within the first 6 months, the project has expanded to cover 6 key states: California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey and Colorado. Additional implementation partners have also signed on to support the fibre composition data analysis: Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles (SMART) Association, Helpsy, United Southern Waste Material, and Goodwill Industries International Inc., with its members Goodwill of Colorado, Goodwill Industries-Suncoast, Inc., Goodwill of the Finger Lakes, and Goodwill of San Francisco Bay. Resource Recycling Systems will drive the dissemination and analysis of the consumer survey together with New York State Center for Sustainable Materials Management and Syracuse University Center for Sustainable Community Solutions, and execute the textile composition analysis using Matoha’s near infrared devices with advisory support from Circle Economy.

Demonstrating the importance of pre-competitive collaboration in tackling the industry’s biggest challenges, lululemon joins Eastman, H&M and Nordstrom as key project partners, together with Fashion for Good corporate partners adidas, Inditex, Levi Strauss & Co., and Target. Adidas' lead sponsorship ensures a deeper analysis of USA textile waste infrastructure and the identification of valuable opportunities for advancement.

In the USA, textile waste is the fastest-growing segment of the country's waste stream, with 85% of discarded textiles ending up in landfills*. Understanding the composition of material, volume and location of used textiles is crucial for capturing them and sorting them for the best and highest quality end use. Moreover, the range of national and regional geographies within the Sorting for Circularity project series enables for nuanced cross-country comparisons - revealing differences in the textile waste generated and infrastructure required.

Sorting for Circularity, a framework co-developed by Fashion for Good and Circle Economy, aims to (re)capture textile waste by unlocking the feedstock potential for recycling, expedite the implementation of game changing automated sorting technologies such as near-infrared spectroscopy and advanced textile-to-textile recycling, and drive circularity within the fashion value chain. The project builds on the success of Sorting for Circularity Europe and India, which revealed insights on material composition, volume, and location of used textiles and provided a solid foundation to accelerate textile recycling in those respective geographical locations.

*United States Environmental Protection Agency (2019). National Overview: Facts and Figures on Materials, Wastes and Recycling.

An openly accessible online energy savings calculator for all users of powder coatings has been launched by AkzoNobel.

All powder coatings customers can instantly calculate the energy and carbon reduction they could achieve with the company’s Interpon products and related services.

It's the latest example of how the company is continuing to work towards its ambition of reducing carbon emissions across the full value chain by 50% by 2030. “Sustainability is critical for all of us and helping customers to reduce energy is one of the many ways we can work with – and for – them in order to meet our shared ambitions,” says Jeff Jirak, Director of AkzoNobel’s Powder Coatings business.

To make using the tool as easy as possible, the calculator – currently only available in Europe – is supported by a detailed guide, which helps customers better understand how even making small changes in the powder coating process can have a big impact in terms of becoming more energy efficient. These include checking for leakages in compressed air systems, improving insulation and ensuring all process equipment is regularly serviced and maintained. Customers also receive expert support from Interpon’s technical service team.

Pulcra Chemicals and Inditex develop Sustineri Coloring, a combined pretreatment and dyeing process for cotton and polyester/cotton resulting in water, time and energy savings. This process is the result of a joint research between Pulcra Chemicals and Inditex with the goal to mitigate the impact of standard dyeing processes and to reduce the use of natural resources.

Sustineri Coloring is based on newly engineered process chemicals which allow a one bath pretreatment and dyeing process for dark, medium and light shades of cotton and polyester/cotton fabrics by exhaust method. This results in shorter processing time and less use of water and energy.

The process is already used by selected mills and it showed that Sustineri Coloring is reducing in pretreatment and dyeing the processing time by up to 60 % and the water and energy consumption by up to 80 and 60% respectively. The state-of-the-art products allow a one bath treatment which is the key in saving resources.

As part of Sappi Europe's full scale decarbonisation roadmap, Gratkorn mill is expanding the share of biomass to be used as an energy source, further driving the move away from fossil fuels as part of the mill’s contribution to the European roadmap. The project follows the recent modernisation of the power plant boiler which enabled the shift from coal to a combined approach of biomass and natural gas.

The mill is now embarking on a next step, enhancing its infrastructure and therefore capacity in order to handle the delivery, sorting and processing of increased biomass levels. This increased utilisation requires an improved biomass handling system at the mill as well as decentralised intermediate storage terminals within the surrounding regions.

"With our long-standing competent wood sourcing partner Papierholz Austria, we will continue our journey to move away from fossil fuels at Gratkorn mill and work towards a climate-neutral future”, says Peter Putz, Managing Director of Sappi Austria GmbH.

For the near term, Sappi’s decarbonisation roadmap includes close to 80 projects being carried out across its European mills by 2025.

“Our 2025 roadmap identifies the path we have embarked on towards a carbon-neutral future,” explains Sarah Price, Director Sustainability of Sappi Europe. The objective is to reduce emissions of specific greenhouse gases (Scope 1 and 2) by 25 per cent and to increase the share of renewable energy in Europe to 50 per cent by 2025 (compared to 2019). Additionally, Sappi’s 2030 science-based target is to reduce carbon emissions by 41.5% per ton of product. “We’re already making good progress towards these targets, with a large number of projects already well-underway or completed”.

Im Rahmen der diesjährigen ITMA 2023, der internationalen Textilmaschinenausstellung und Plattform für die gesamte Textilmaschinenbranche, die vom 08. bis 14. Juni 2023 in Mailand stattfand, wurde Herr Dipl.-Ing. Philipp Weigel für seine am ITM angefertigte exzellente Studienarbeit "Numerische Simulation des Struktur- und Auszugverhaltensparametrisch generierter profilierter Carbonpolymergarne" mit dem ITMA Sustainable Innovation Award in der Kategrie "Research & Innovation Excellence Award" ausgezeichnet. Er erhielt hierfür den 1. Preis, der mit 10.000 EUR dotiert ist.
 
Die Arbeit ist von großem wissenschaftlichen Interesse für die Entwicklung hochleistungsfähiger, ressourcenschonender Carbonbetonbauteile mit höchster Materialeffizienz und Nachhaltigkeit sowie für die simulative Beschreibung und digitale Auslegung der Bewehrungsstruktur.

CEMATEX-Präsident Ernesto Maurer überreichte das Preisgeld und Urkunde an die glücklichen Gewinner:nnen während der ITMA 2023 in Mailand, Italien.

Der 2. und 3. Preis ging an Absolventen des Instituts für Textiltechnik der RWTH Aachen.

Der ITMA Sustainable Innovation Award wurde von CEMATEX ins Leben gerufen, um die gemeinsamen Anstrengungen der globalen Textilindustrie zur Förderung der Nachhaltigkeit von Unternehmen durch innovative Lösungen und zur Förderung herausragender branchenspezifischer Forschung zu würdigen.
Der Preis umfasst zwei Kategorien: einen Industry Excellence Award für Textil- und Bekleidungshersteller und einen Research & Innovation Excellence Award, der für Master-Studenten offen ist.

Nylon 6, nylon 6,6, polypropylene, PET and calcium carbonate are available through the company’s proprietary carpet recycling process

Circular Polymers by Ascend, a market-leading recycler of post-consumer carpet, today the launch of Cerene™, a line of recycled polymers and materials made from the company’s proprietary carpet reclaiming technology. Cerene is available as polyamide 6 and 66, PET, polypropylene and calcium carbonate as a consistent,
sustainable feedstock for many applications, including molding and compounding.
Recycling experts from Circular Polymers will be showcasing Cerene at Compounding World Expo on June 14-15 at the Messe Essen in Germany.

Ascend Performance Materials, a fully integrated producer of durable high-performance materials and the majority owner of Circular Polymers by Ascend, is known for its innovations in nylon 6,6. Cerene will continue that legacy with offerings in nylon 6,6 while also bringing to market recycled polymers such as nylon 6, PET and PP.

“Customers around the globe are seeking consistent and reliable post-consumer recycled materials,” said Maria Field, business director of Circular Polymers by Ascend. “Cerene is mechanically recycled using a process that minimizes our carbon footprint and environmental impact.”

Circular Polymers by Ascend converts post-consumer carpet into fiber and pellets. The company uses a proprietary process in its California-based facilities to achieve high efficiency in recycling, successfully providing a new life for virtually every component of the carpet and backing. The company has redirected 85 million pounds of carpet from landfills into new goods since 2018.

Sustainable Chemistry for the Textile Industry (SCTI™) and Together for Sustainability (TfS) are teaming up to support and accelerate the leather and textile industry's sustainability journey through sustainable chemistry. Together they will collaborate in driving convergence in standards and methodologies and inspire industry action for a better future.

SCTI is an alliance of leading chemical companies that strives to empower the textile and leather industries to apply sustainable, state-of-the-art chemistry solutions that protect factory workers, local communities, consumers and the environment.

TfS is a member-driven initiative, raising Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards throughout the chemical industry. TfS members are chemical companies committed to making sustainability improvements within their own – and their suppliers’ – operations. TfS has also launched a comprehensive program to foster defossilization of chemical value chains, providing standardization tools to enable effective Scope 3 management based on primary data and launching the TfS Guideline to determine Product Carbon Footprint (PCF).

Both TfS and SCTI share the mission to drive transformational change, and intend to collaborate on advancing the industry’s sustainability goals, leveraging the TfS Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) program.

• Project from the Global Organic Textile Standard, European Space Agency and Marple will use AI and satellite imagery to detect organic versus non-organic cotton fields
• Innovative demonstrator project explores the potential of remote monitoring to strengthen integrity and development of organic cotton cultivation
• Project will run across India with first results expected by the end of 2023

In a world first, the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), European Space Agency (ESA) and AI company Marple have today launched a new demonstrator project that aims to show the potential for remote satellite monitoring of organic cotton cultivation systems.

The project, to be carried out under ESA’s Business Applications and Space Solutions (BASS) programme, will train artificial intelligence (AI) to use ESA satellite data to detect cotton fields across India and automatically classify them according to their cultivation standard. By integrating standardised yield metrics, this innovative approach will also enable GOTS to generate realistic estimates of organic cotton yields in specific areas.

Integrated with existing GOTS measures, this project will enable GOTS to further enhance the integrity of organic cotton by developing advanced risk assessment technology for organic certification and preventing fraud from the beginning of the supply chain. “It is an honour and very exciting to be a partner in this ESA Demonstration Project, and it is living up to our claim to be pioneers serving the sustainable textile sector to enable continuous improvement. Technologies like this will be a game changer regarding the integrity and promotion opportunities of organic cotton.” says Claudia Kersten, Managing Director of GOTS.

The project's anticipated impact extends beyond identifying certified organic cotton fields. It is expected to also empower GOTS to recognise cotton fields that have not yet obtained organic certification but possess the potential for a seamless transition to organic cultivation, thanks to their utilisation of traditional and ecologically friendly farming practices. This would enable GOTS to bring a greater number of farmers – particularly those of a smaller size – into the certified organic sector and supply chains, creating new economic opportunities for small-scale farmers and their communities while also helping the textile sector to meet growing consumer demand for organic cotton. Guillaume Prigent, Business Development and Partnerships Officer at the European Space Agency, adds: “This project highlights how space solutions can have a positive impact on the world and is the kind of innovation that ESA supports through its Business Applications and Space Solutions programme.”

The project will run across the distinct cotton growing regions in India, with first results expected by the end of 2023.

India project builds on successful Uzbekistan feasibility pilot
The project is co-financed by GOTS and ESA, in collaboration with Marple GmbH, a German software development firm that developed the CoCuRA (Cotton Cultivation Remote Assessment) software with ESA BASS and successfully piloted it in a feasibility project in 2021 in Uzbekistan.

That venture showed how the trained AI was able to accurately differentiate cotton fields from other crops using only satellite images and sensor data, as well as whether the cotton fields were cultivated organically.

This spurred considerable interest from GOTS, which has committed to the development of cutting-edge technologies that can improve the integrity of the organic textile sector, especially cotton. Dr David Scherf, co-founder of Marple, said: “All our projects strive to leverage advanced technology for a positive impact on the environment and society. We are therefore delighted that our CoCuRA technology, which emerged from a moonshot research project, is being applied in a practical and impactful way. We are excited about the opportunity to work with the exceptional team at GOTS and further strengthen our successful partnership with ESA.”