Krishna Manda
Vice President of Corporate Sustainability Lenzing Group
Future belongs to organisations which make sustainability their core business
The sustainability ideas and concepts of Austria-based Lenzing Group have an all-embracing benefit. They maximise value creation from both the environmental and the economic perspective. In an interview with Fibre2Fashion, Krishna Manda, Vice President of Corporate Sustainability at the Lenzing Group speaks about how the Austria-based company is considering sustainability as part of its growth strategy, and its ambitious targets that it has set for itself.
What does the term ‘sustainability’ mean at Lenzing?
Sustainability is a core value at Lenzing. It is an innovation and business driver for the group. It is integrated into different functions to be part of day-to-day decision-making, thus becoming an integral part of Lenzing’s core business and strategy. This makes Lenzing future-fit and ensures long-term success.
Lenzing terms its launch of carbon neutral fibres as a milestone in its path towards carbon neutrality. Please tell more about this.
As explained before, sustainability should be a key business driver. In this context, we are offering fibres with lower CO2 footprint in their category in the industry. It is achieved by 3 levers: own emissions reduction, supplier engagement and offsetting remaining residual emissions. In the long-term, the contribution of offsets will reduce as we make progress on other two levers. These products with low CO2 emissions, a competitive differentiation, not only create a demand in the market but also create a pull for reduction of CO2 emissions further in our own operations as well as from suppliers. Due to these improvements, we can get a step closer to net-zero carbon journey.
We are using these products to drive climate roadmaps and investments in our facilities. For example, we are converting Lenzing’s China facility from coal to natural gas. We are already sourcing 100 per cent renewable electricity for four of our facilities. Moreover, Lenzing’s new lyocell facility in Thailand is Scope 1 and 2 carbon neutral due to the use of sustainable biomass-based energy. In Brazil, we are constructing a state-of-the-art pulp mill which will supply excess bioenergy to Brazilian grid to replace natural gas-based electricity. So, Lenzing considers climate change as part of its growth strategy and make progress towards its ambitious target.
Where are the major Lenzing fibre brands produced? What is their carbon footprint and how do you manage carbon emissions during their shipment from production site to the user country?
Our fibre brands are produced in various countries. For example, ECOVERO branded viscose fibres are produced in Austria and China. They have 50 per cent lower CO2 emissions than the generic viscose fibres from the industry. We have a holistic view of CO2 emissions from wood sourcing to pulp production, to fibre production and finally logistics to customers which is a minor contributor compared to other steps. For example, we use low carbon or renewable fuels and renewable electricity in fibre production and optimise transport wherever possible by preferring train over road transport.
What percentage of fibres that are produced globally can be termed as ‘sustainable’ fibres? In which countries/regions are these mainly produced?
We have a concept called Net benefit products which have substantially better sustainability performance than existing market alternatives across the whole value chain, for example CO2 emissions. Currently, we have around 62 per cent of revenues coming from these products. These products are available for different regions and from different facilities of Lenzing group around the world.
What would be your advice to companies who are trying to reduce their use of water, energy and chemicals—the three things that are essential in textile manufacturing?
I would suggest looking at sustainability holistically, not as an add-on or tick box exercise. If sustainability is not part of your product innovation and business plans, then you cannot advance it after a certain point, because you won’t be left with more low hanging fruits. Thus, it will depend on commitments of the leadership team and passion of the employees who drive and find various opportunities. And also look at changing regulatory landscape (e.g., Europe) and prepare accordingly to support end customers and new era of consumers.
A decade ago, companies were claiming themselves or their products as sustainable if they performed one activity, for example a recycling process or energy conservation initiative. There is nothing wrong with such activities, however, you cannot claim to be sustainable by just doing one good activity which may or may not be part of your core business – the space where you have the biggest impact and influence. In the future, companies that conduct their business in Europe will need to prove how their budgets (CAPEX, OPEX) are spent and contribute to sustainability and what kind of products drive their revenue streams – polluting or green products. Similarly, any product claim or consumer marketing needs to be proven and substantiated with scientific facts and methods, data, and approved labels. Thus, I believe, the future belongs to organisations which make sustainability their core business. The foundation must be based on a commitment from board, strategy with concrete targets and clear roles and responsibilities.
Are there any organisational goals to reduce emissions under Scope 1, 2 and 3? If so, please elaborate.
Yes. According to our Science-based climate change target, we aim to reduce specific GHG (Greenhouse Gas) emissions by 50 per cent by 2030, baseline of 2017, for all 3 scopes. This is an ambitious target if we look at the definition of each scope and we are committed to make this a success. This target needs to be achieved through emissions reduction alone, no carbon offsetting is allowed.
What are the latest sustainable innovations at Lenzing? How many more in the pipeline?
There are quite a few innovations which have been offered to the industry recently.
Lenzing unveiled pioneering TENCEL Modal fibre with Indigo Color technology
Lenzing collaborated with Orange Fiber as part of new TENCEL Limited Edition initiative
Lenzing diversified denim offering with launch of new matte TENCEL branded lyocell fibres
Lenzing expanded fibre identification technology to TENCEL branded fibres
Lenzing’s VEOCEL brand launched hydrophobic lyocell fibres with Dry technology
Lenzing is driven by innovation and sustainability. We will definitely come with more innovations in the near future.
How are wood-based cellulosic fibres made at Lenzing? Can we say the whole process from the forest to fibre and then to its next stage is all 100 per cent sustainable?
We have made a lot of progress over a few decades on sustainability from sustainable wood sourcing, pulp production with bio-refineries having 100 per cent resource utilisation until fibre production with low environmental impact. However, we also need to improve further in different aspects. Industry needs to be more ambitious on tackling climate change, adopting circularity and transparency. Industry has only scratched the surface. With this in mind, Lenzing has ambitious targets in the areas of climate change and circularity, among others. We are the first wood-based cellulose fibre producer to have an approved science-based climate change target in the industry. We are working towards net-zero emissions by 2050.
Lenzing is committed to establishing the circular economy in the industry. How do you plan to achieve this?
We have ambitious goals to push this further; We want to offer viscose, modal and lyocell staple fibres with up to 50 per cent post-consumer recycled content on a commercial scale by 2025.
We are working with different levers to improve circularity of Lenzing, thereby the industry.
Raw material Origin – Lenzing products are part of biological cycle of circular economy. They come from renewable resource wood and the fibres are compostable at the end of their life, thus avoiding micro plastic pollution and reduction of solid waste in the society.
Fibre production level – Lenzing’s closed-loop lyocell technology produces fibres with very high resource efficiency and less waste. We need to drive more of these innovations. We also need to reduce production waste in materials and manufacturing facilities.
Textile value chain level – Our REFIBRA technology uses waste scraps from textile value chain to make recycled fibres with virgin fibre quality. There is a great potential to further scale the use and conversion of these waste fractions which are millions of tons per year.
Post-consumer use level – Recently we collaborated with Sodra, a Swedish pulp company, to recycle post-consumer waste from society. We intend to scale this to use 25,000 tonnes of textile waste by 2025.
Last two steps are at an inception level. To scale these further, we need to address many barriers and make improvements at systemic level.
Design for circularity: Currently garments are designed with many fibre types—cotton, polyester, elastane, acrylic, nylon, etc. We cannot recycle these blended fibre garments with current technologies and less environmental impact. So, design for circularity should be made a priority.
Incentives for recycled materials: Currently there is no level playing field for recycled materials and due to lack of infrastructure and perverse incentives (fossil fuels), the recycled materials cost higher than virgin materials.
Infrastructure development: We need facilities to collect, sort, recycle, etc. There is a funding gap for these infra projects.
Funding to scale existing commercial scale technologies: There are technologies like REFIBRA which are feasible at an industrial level. We need to funnel dedicated funds to these kinds of mature technologies to drive recycled materials production at scale with good quality.
You have spent more than 11 years with Lenzing. What are the learnings?
I am very fortunate to work with so many committed and passionate people at Lenzing and also many colleagues in the industry. There are many learnings.
On a personal level, I lead with my values and keep an open-mind to learn and grow from every opportunity the world provides. Sustainability domain provides plenty of opportunities for reflection, self-transformation and personal growth as a responsible human being and a professional.
Based on my learnings, I focus on three aspects to advance sustainability agenda:
Alignment – Creating alignment across top-leadership, functions, teams and even stakeholders to advance any topic. This often takes long time but can provide better results and engagement for real action and lasting change.
Collaboration – Many topics cannot be addressed by any one department (or by one company), so I work with many stakeholders within the company to bring ownership to functions and support them in their journey.
Coherence – Sustainability is a complex and multi-faceted topic, with each topic having an inter-relation and influence on other topics. Thus, you need to be a systemic thinker to see these relationships and optimise the system for the whole, not for one part or one impact. And also try to address multiple aspects at the same time such as creating business value and reducing CO2 emissions together. This ensures long-term viability of the company and sustainability strategy.
Published on: 10/05/2022
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
