IMPRESSIONS from a Cross-section

Topic

In which areas of fibre development/innovation do you foresee the maximum activity: sustainability/circularity, performance, longevity, or affordability?

Multi-functional garments will be next big thing

There has been a flurry of activities in the textile world, where we keep hearing about a new fibre being developed every now and then, the pandemic having accelerated the process. Fibre2fashion spoke to some fibre industry experts to gauge their views on which of the areas - sustainability/circularity, performance, longevity, affordability, etc, will see the maximum activity in fibre development/innovation.

Hoi Kwan Lam
Group Chief Marketing Officer, HeiQ Materials AG

Hoi Kwan Lam: If I have to put these in order then the first will be sustainability, which embodies a lot of other things, including durability. Durability is a part of sustainability. Performance is another aspect that can contribute to sustainability. The global trend now is that people want to own less. Even before the pandemic, this had already started. People have been pursuing a sort of a minimalistic lifestyle-they prefer to have less and do more. If you are spending money on only one garment for different reasons (like it should have odour control, be water repellent, have cooling effect, be antiviral, etc), you would definitely go for more performance. So, performance will be very important in the next few decades to come. We will see more and more products with more and more performance. Normally multi-functional garments will be the next big thing.

Florian Heubrandner
Vice President, Global Textiles Business, Lenzing AG

Florian Heubrandner: In short, all of the above. The key to fast-paced industry transformation is to continue to innovate across many aspects of fibres. Sustainable fibres, including those that subscribe to the circular economy, must feature unparalleled performance and longevity to ensure consumers are not reliant on continual short term purchases. The move towards "slow fashion" which we have already started to observe globally is an encouraging foundation for the widespread implementation of fibres like these. The next frontier for fibre innovation will be scalability. Whilst sustainable fibres are growing in popularity quickly, the fibre landscape needs to grow and scale in an environmentally friendly way to support a broader transition towards ecofriendly alternatives.

For the textiles industry, the largescale introduction of sustainable fibres with performance and durability in more garments

will be crucial as we look towards the next decade, and hopefully a transformed industry with groundbreaking sustainability credentials.

Sharong Chong
Vice President, SustainabilitySateri, Sateri

Sharon Chong: Current fibre development/innovation focuses on sustainability and circularity as the fashion industry races to address global environmental challenges and close the loop in production. However, this should not come at the expense of other priorities like performance and affordability, as sustainable development of the industry is just as important.

We set high parameters because we believe that in the true spirit of a circular / closed loop economy, we should be upcycling rather than downcycling. Longevity is part of good circular design, but a sustainable product is irrelevant, or at best a proof of concept if consumers do not accept its quality/performance or cannot afford its price. So, all these attributes must go hand in hand.

Robert M.P. Jarausch
Managing Director, PyroTex Industries GmbH

Robert Jarausch: Affordability-obviously-and economics are always important. But if we have learned something in the past year it is that we have always been looking too much at pricing. It's not all about who can do things cheaper and sell more. It's all the other points you mentioned like sustainability, performance and longevity. In terms of affordability, I may pay a bit more if it lasts a little longer. In the end, the lifecycle cost is a lot lower. The areas matter too. We need to move away from what is quick, quick, quick and cheap, cheap, cheap to something which has a more sustainable background. We are past that point and if something has been shown in the past year it is that we can't just exploit everything, be it the planet or the people

Roxana Barbieru
Vice President, Emerging Businesses and Alliances Management, Stora Enso

Roxana Barbieru: There is a clear demand for textile fibres that are both sustainable and traceable. In addition to environmental concerns, brand owners in the fashion industry are concerned with traceability and looking to increase transparency in their supply chains. Neither fossil-based fibres nor cotton are easily traceable. With dissolving pulp, our ambition is to further increase transparency in the value chain.

Customers and consumers are looking for sustainable textiles that are environmentally produced (with less water, energy, chemicals), designed to be re-used or recycled and to retain significant value after recycling, designed for higher durability and longer use, made from renewable raw materials traceable to origin, offer transparency across the value chain, and have a socially positive value chain.

Michael Lüthi
Head of Business Unit Polymer, Sanitized AG

Michael Lüthi: We believe and hope that the progress will take place in the areas of sustainability/circularity, performance, longevity-and not in the area of affordability. It cannot be the goal of humanity with limited resources that we create even cheaper fibres/textiles than they already exist today. Sanitized's development is focused on sustainability/circularity, performance, and longevity-and we have achieved great results in these areas in recent years. Our hygiene function helps consumers to behave more sustainably and save valuable resources throughout the lifecycle, with a durability and performance that was not reached just a few years ago

SY Huang
Senior Vice President, Saya

SY Huang: Sustainability and circularity have to be the priorities for the foreseeable future. The last 50 years have been spent developing some great performance options, and now we are seeing that our push for superior performance comes at a cost. Expectations and standards in performance have been set, and the next challenge is to maintain those standards with more sustainable manufacturing at all levels.

Ulrika Björk
Chief Executive Officer, Polygiene AB

Ulrika Björk: A combination of performance in the material of the product as well as recycling of materials are the most important ingredients in the way forward for the textiles industry to become more sustainable. Polygiene is all about the

guarantee to ensure the product "Stays Fresh" and by that challenge the consumer lifestyle by "wear more and wash less" which represent a significant tool in prolonging the longevity of the product while consuming less resources. We are focused on

preserving products in order to maximise the use of it and by that minimising the CO2 footprint. We cannot claim to be the super expert in fibres, but as a stakeholder in the textiles industry we see big potential sustainability savings in prolonging the lifecycle of the fibre as well as recycling different materials types into fibres. Besides creating better performing products for consumers it will also enable brands to remarket already sold products which are needed as an incentive to set up a secondhand business to become more circular in their ways of working.

Kirsi Terho
Key Account Director, Infinited Fiber Company

Kirsi Terho: I think that the problems that need to be tackled are so huge that we need innovation and development on all fronts. Sustainability is the result of lifetime impacts; so, I think it doesn't even make sense to just focus on one aspect. If you have a sustainable fibre with poor performance, no one will want to use it. The area where I think rapid development has been made and will continue to be made is circularity, as this addresses so many of the industry's big challenges from raw material sourcing all the way to textile waste management.

Looking specifically at cellulose-based textile fibres, which are our area of expertise, the technology to create premium-quality new fibres out of existing fibres hasn't really existed until now. From our perspective, the big development that needs to happen now is the scaling up of the circular technologies that have been proven so that the textiles industry can adopt the new circular materials into their portfolios. Here, the challenge that we see is that for the fibre makers, circularity is still of less importance than it is to those textiles industry stakeholders that are closer to consumers.

Ruth Farrell
Global Marketing Director, Textiles, Eastman Naia

Ruth Farrell: The covid-19 pandemic has heightened appreciation of the environment and accelerated the momentum around sustainability in fashion. As a fibre producer, we have seen a surge of interest in circularity and solutions like Naia Renew that address waste and creating value from waste. I believe longevity is another area that will be important for the future. Consumers are investing in garments that are higher quality and last longer-features such as ease of care and reduced pilling are becoming more important to both brands and consumers.

Gianni Corso
Chief Executive Officer, Manifattura Italiana Cucirini Spa

Gianni Corso: Sustainability and circularity. The reason is today's teenager culture: new generations are definitely more sensible (and sensitive too) about the environment. This issue has been taken very seriously as never before by today's teenagers, and they will become the main consumers in a decade. We must listen to them and speed up.

Daniel Uretsky
President, Allied Feather + Down

Daniel Uretsky: We hope that future development and innovation will begin to do a better job of encompassing all of the above. If something performs great and is sustainable but comes at a price point where it is not at all practical for use, then it really is not helping anyone. It is more important than ever to try to check as many of these boxes as possible when working on any new development. That said, it is important also for consumers to buy in and realise that there are often higher costs associated with many of these innovations and that should be ok as long as it is within reason and commensurate with the advantages in performance, sustainability and longevity that can be maximised through the product.

Mike Simko
Global Marketing Director, Hyosung Textiles

Mike Simko: Sorry to be blunt, but yes, yes, yes and yes to all these areas of development. The leaders in the industry work on continuous improvement; so, there is no taking a step back in any of these categories. Hyosung always focuses on affordable

and long-lasting fibres for performance and for sustainability. Now we are on a mission to combine these two areas. So, we are combining our regen family of recycled yarn with our functional performance products.

This article was first published in the March 2021 edition of the print magazine.

Published on: 26/05/2021

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.

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