Spain's Inditex signs €70 mn deal to buy recycled polyester cycora

This purchase commitment will be key to support the construction of Ambercycle’s first commercial-scale textile regeneration factory. The scaled application of Ambercycle's innovative molecular regeneration technology will make circular materials more widely available and accessible in the fashion supply chain. Production of cycora at Ambercycle’s new commercial plant is expected to begin around 2025 and continue to be incorporated in Inditex product offerings over the following three years, Inditex said in a press release.

Inditex aims to have 100 per cent of its textile products to be made exclusively from materials with a smaller environmental footprint by 2030. As part of this commitment, the Group expects to have 25 per cent of the textile fibers made from next-generation materials that do not yet exist at an industrial scale. Cycora, a regenerated polyester created from end-of-life textiles, replaces conventional polyester.

As part of this agreement, Zara Athleticz is also launching its first capsule collection in collaboration with Ambercycle, featuring technical pieces crafted with up to 50 per cent cycora content. The collection will be available at Zara official website.

"Ambercycle’s goal is to enable circularity by replacing virgin polyester with textile-to-textile regenerated cycora. Our partnership with Inditex represents a monumental leap towards realising circularity at scale in the fashion industry," said Shay Sethi, CEO of Ambercycle.

Javier Losada, Inditex’s chief sustainability officer added, "At Inditex we are committed to achieving circularity in the fashion industry. We want to drive innovation to scale up new solutions, processes, and materials to achieve textile to textile recycling. Ambercycle’s groundbreaking molecular regeneration technology transforms end-of-life textiles into new materials, effectively reducing waste and emissions in the production cycle.”

This collaboration is part of Inditex’s Sustainability Innovation Hub, an innovation platform that works alongside start-ups, academic institutions, and tech centres to promote and scale new materials, technologies and processes that reduce the environmental footprint of fashion products and help move towards more sustainable and circular solutions.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KD)