Fashion brands and suppliers are facing more pressure and increased regulations on how products are made and dealt with at end of life, all while dealing with rising costs. The funding required to innovate and upgrade remains elusive.

Companies are facing more pressure to become more sustainable while remaining profitable — and deep tech can help.

Despite a brilliant idea, innovative design or strong name, sustainably running a company as a starting entrepreneur can be difficult. [DUTCH ARTICLE]

There’s probably enough clothing on the planet that there’s no need to spin another new fibre. In the United States and European Union almost 22 million tonnes of textiles are thrown out every year. The waste is found everywhere from the ocean to the Atacama Desert.

As the concept of circular fashion has gained traction, researchers and entrepreneurs are developing tools they hope brands will implement to finally close the loop. One of the latest is new AI sorting technology developed by California-based company Refiberd.

The most-used material in clothing may also be the ultimate recyclable fibre.

Transferring dye to fabric is incredibly carbon-intensive. Newer sustainable techniques, including coloring with carbon dioxide, may help.

Polyester is in almost all of your clothing, and it’s almost impossible to recycle. Some innovators are looking beyond turning plastic bottles into fabric.

In a recent report, the UN Fashion Charter said there’s still a long way to go to meet its net-zero emissions goal, and signatories are dropping. It’s raised questions about impact and accountability.

The GROW pop-up exhibition of the Fashion for Good Museum is open in Hungary until 25 March. The interactive exhibition showcases clothes and accessories made from sustainable bio-materials such as banana fibre, orange and coconut shells, and is located at the Budapest Metropolitan University. [HUNGARIAN ARTICLE]

In this new episode of the podcast Smart Creation, Kathleen Rademan, Director of the Innovation Platform at Fashion for Good tells us how the platform works, how it is financed, its innovative projects and the particularity of their museum. 

What is sustainability? How is it linked to the fashion industry? And what are the essential components when we define sustainable fashion? [DUTCH ARTICLE]

Fashion companies to look at making business models more circular in a bid to reduce supply chain risks.

Can recycled and bio-based solutions accelerate the transformation in an industry that is circular when it comes to textile production? Fashion for Good helps investigating on how sustainable the industry can become in the short term.

How can we tell if the clothes in our wardrobes really are what they claim to be? Fashion for Good mentions the insights and issues of international fabrics’ certifications along the supply chains.

Fashion for Good launches the Home-Compostable Polybag Project, a pilot to test alternatives to conventional single-use polybags,

Materials like 100% biodegradable Fleather from Phool, which was part of Fashion For Good’s innovation programme in 2020, stand out as a unique category.

Fashion for Good was selected in three categories of the Excellence Category shortlists for the 2022 Awards organised by Just Style

Fashion for Good innovator Renewcell’s new factory is one of the first steps toward a system that turns old clothes into new high-quality clothes made entirely with recycled fabric, addressing the mountains of textile waste accumulating worldwide.

With pioneering ideas, Katrin Ley, winner Business category, wants to make the fashion industry more sustainable with her innovation platform and museum Fashion for Good and contribute to a better world. [DUTCH ARTICLE]

The Sorting for Circularity Europe Project highlights the significant opportunity for circularity, with only 2% of post-consumer textiles diverted to fibre-to-fibre recycling today.

As fibre-to-fibre textile recycling commitments increase across Europe, as well as the amount of textile waste collected, the infrastructure required to drive the move towards circular systems requires significant investment to scale.

Levi’s launched the next iteration of its “Buy Better, Wear Longer” campaign. The project is built on the brand’s long-term commitment to prolonging the lifespan of its products.

With an average growth between 15% and 20%, the circular fashion industry could reach 75 billion dollars in 2025. As a result, the EU funded the AllThing.BioPRO project to help consumers make more informed choices in bioeconomy.[ITALIAN ARTICLE]

For a long time, the fashion industry has been caught up by its excesses such as overproduction. It is with the aim of giving new life to fabrics that the start-up developed two innovations, which, when combined, allow clothes to be easily “unsewn” and thus facilitate fabric recovery. [FRENCH ARTICLE]

A Innovation Platform Director at Fashion for Good explains that the pandemic highlighted the challenges that the sector must face when the supply chain is blocked and that, to face this, it is necessary to “implement innovative solutions”. [SPANISH ARTICLE]

Chicago-based LanzaTech made headlines last year by working with Zara and Lululemon to make garments from captured steel mill emissions. Now Rubi Laboratories from San Francisco, recently raised US$4.5 million in a successful seed funding round to develop its method of producing cellulose from CO2.

Circular fashion company Circ has secured an investment of thirty million dollars, equivalent to thirty million euros. Several large corporations participated in the investment round, including the fashion group Inditex, according to a press release from Circ. [DUTCH ARTICLE]

Swimwear is becoming a lot more sustainable thanks to Econyl, nylon made mainly from old fishing nets. “I immediately thought it was such a good story.” [DUTCH ARTICLE]

Fashion leaders gathered in Copenhagen for the annual Global Fashion Summit. Circularity, carbon, community and pre-competitive collaboration, the four C’s of sustainability, dominated this year’s Global Fashion Summit in Copenhagen. The resounding message? Urgently needed progress is reliant on the industry working together to achieve it.

TrusTrace, a market-leading platform for supply chain transparency and product traceability within the fashion and retail industries, has joined forces with Fashion Revolution and Fashion for Good to accelerate sustainable transformation in the fashion industry with the help of a one-stop guide.

Mycelium-fabrics with muschroom, offer an alternative for leather, hoping to make big fashion brands such as Stella McCartney and Adidas more sustainable. The production takes place in a nursery in the Gelderse Hedel. [DUTCH ARTICLE]

Sustainability initiative Fashion for Good has announced the seven innovators to take part in this year’s Asia Innovation Programme.  Those selected – Picvisa, Gaiacel, An Herbals, Fermentech Labs, Sodhani Biotech, Vaayu and UKHI Hemp Foundation – are said to offer solutions which focus on raw materials, processing, and end-of-use.

The collective mycelium research pairs Vivobarefoot and Pangaia with Ecovative’s team of mycologists, engineers and designers, to develop a line of fungus-based, petroleum-free foams and hides for their products. It also sees the three join the Fashion for Good Cooperative.

At the heart of this growing revolution sits Fashion for Good (FFG), a global initiative that is catalysing and supporting innovators dedicated to reimagining the industry. Today it announced the eight change makers that will join its 2022 Global Innovation Programme.

“This ambitious project explores a new source of feed stocks for the fashion industry that, if scaled, will help drive both the agriculture and textile industry towards net-zero. We see great potential for these various agriculture waste streams that would otherwise have few secondary uses. By applying innovative technologies to develop natural fibers, we can diminish the pressure on existing natural fibers and shift away from unsustainable materials and sources,” says Katrin Ley, managing director, Fashion for Good.

Fashion for Good launched the Black Pigment Pilot project on Tuesday with partners Bestseller, Birla Cellulose, Kering and PVH Corp., in collaboration with Paradise Textiles, and innovators Graviky Labs, Living Ink and Nature Coatings. The project aims to validate and scale black pigments derived from waste feedstocks such as industrial carbon, algae and wood that could replace synthetic dyes and offer a more sustainable means of textile production with a lower carbon impact. [SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED]

“The race to develop new materials and processes is gaining momentum thanks to rapidly maturing technology and more substantial and deeper partnerships between brands and innovators who were often “slow on the action front””, said Georgia Parker, Head of Innovation at Sustainable Project Fashion for Good accelerator. This case study of Business of Fashion examines three innovations in the production of raw materials that are gaining momentum and providing opportunities for the fashion industry to reinvent the destructive materials and practices it has long relied on.

Global accelerator Fashion for Good has announced a new consortium, the D(R)YE Factory of the Future project, backed by Kering and adidas, among others, aimed at reducing water use in textile production. The initiative is directed at accelerating the fashion industry’s shift to dry textile processing—methods that use little to no water, produce no wastewater and reduce overall energy use.

Fashion for Good has launched the D(R)YE Factory of the Future initiative in a bid to clean up one of the most polluting processes in the industry. It is in the pre-treatment and colouration phases of textile production that the highest emissions of the fashion value chain are generated. To combat this, the new global consortium project led will bring together innovations that can transform these stages and pave the way for a seismic shift in processing techniques from wet to dry.

Design is present on all levels of our society. With every design, it’s a matter for designers to stay one step ahead of us. They work now on the designs of tomorrow, seemingly requiring a crystal ball of some sort. But lacking that, an innovative mindset is crucial. Our Marketing & Communications Director, Anne-Ro Klevant Groen, discusses what design and innovation exactly mean for all the fashion industry stakeholders involved.

PVH and Bestseller are first in line to trial Ecovative’s mycelium “Forager” hides in a new cooperative revealed today. Alongside the brands, Amsterdam-based nonprofit Fashion for Good (which Ecovative has been working with for the past three years) is also a strategic partner as Ecovative refines production.

Fashion for Good is working with Levi’s Strauss & Co. and natural dye start-up Stony Creek Colors to pilot the use of plant-based indigo at scale in the denim’s industry supply chain. Stony Creek Colors will provide their IndiGold indigo dye to select denim mills used by the two companies to run performance trials, with the aim to have Levi garments dyed with IndiGold pre-reduced dye on the market by late 2022 or early 2023. [SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED]

The Fashion for Good Asia Programme celebrated another successful year, sharing the highlights of 2021 at their Innovation Fest this week. Continuing to drive innovation across the region, Japanese fibre and textile manufacturer Teijin Frontier was officially welcomed as a partner, establishing a footing in East Asia where the programme is gaining momentum.

The writing is on the wall for polyester and its crude oil origins. Today, Amsterdam-based innovation firm Fashion for Good announced a new polyester-focused project, Full Circle Textiles Project – Polyester, borrowing from the findings in its Full Circle Textiles Project, which launched formally in September. The current project aims to validate and scale up promising technologies in polyester recycling. [SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED]

Together with partners Adidas, Levi Strauss & Co, and PVH Corp, Fashion for Good is backing a new consortium project to understand both the pre-consumer and post-consumer textile waste streams in India, and to pilot sorting and mapping solutions. The Sorting for Circularity India Project aims to build an infrastructure towards greater circularity in the years to come.

It’s common practice for apparel brands to hop from factory to factory in search of cost savings. This needs to change, but this requires the necessary funding. The Apparel Impact Institute and Fashion for Good estimate that it will take a trillion dollars in global investment to decarbonize the industry. Their new report calls it an investment “opportunity,” but brands are not exactly climbing over each other to get involved.

The fashion industry cannot meet its COP26 climate commitments, nor can brands meet their individual goals to decarbonise, if they don’t address the major lack of funding needed to overhaul the supply chain, experts say. There’s a significant funding gap in fashion’s sustainability commitments, made clear in a new report estimating a $1 trillion deficit in reaching decarbonisation goals. We unpack where, why and how to fix it. [MEMBERSHIP REQUIRED]

Annually, we use about about 500 billion plastic bags to store, transport, and protect garments, footwear and accessories. Less than 15% of polybags in circulation are collected for recycling, according to Fashion for Good. However, if the startup Sway has its way, more thin film packaging like polybags, retail bags, and wrappers will be compostable and even carbon negative. The packaging company makes seaweed-based, home-compostable replacements for plastic packaging, which even come in bright, cheerful colours.

The global initiative Fashion For Good has formally announced its partnership with technical textile supplier Gore Fabrics, home to the GORE-TEX brand. The cross-industry collaboration demonstrates the newly affiliate partner’s commitment to achieving its environmental goals and driving systemic change within the fashion industry. [ACCOUNT REQUIRED]

Technical textile supplier Gore Fabrics, which owns the GORE-TEX brand, has officially joined the Fashion for Good initiative. The newly affiliate partner said that it looked forward to the cross-industry collaboration through this partnership, demonstrating that they want to accelerate their sustainability efforts. Gore Fabrics officially partnered with Fashion for Good in early 2020 and is already participating in the recently announced Renewable Carbon Textiles Project, together with other partners from Fashion for Good. [SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED]

It is clear to everyone involved that the current state of the apparel industry has detrimental impacts on our environment. A handful of brands and tech or bio-startups have been focusing on better solutions, but collaboration was lacking within the industry. However, ‘bridge builder’ Fashion for Good aims to put all these heads together. Its current exposition “GROW: the future of fashion”, demonstrates this by connecting young Dutch design talent with textile innovators and displaying the results in their Museum. [DUTCH ARTICLE, SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED].

Amsterdam-based fashion and textile innovation platform Fashion For Good’s funding initiative to aid sustainable manufacturing, the Good Fashion Fund (GFF) has signed its first deal with Pratibha Syntex Limited (PSL). The Indian textile and apparel manufacturer receives a $4.5 million long-term loan as part of the deal. Initiated in 2019, GFF provides long-term funding to the textile and apparel industry in Asia to achieve the Five Goods — Good Energy, Good Water, Good Materials, Good Lives, and Good Economy.

Pratibha Syntex Limited, an Indian manufacturer, has struck an agreement with the Good Fashion Fund, a fund established by Fashion for Good to promote sustainable manufacturing practices. Pratibha Syntex’s anticipated capital expenditures for updating machinery and expanding sustainable equipment in several divisions will be supported by the $4.5 million long-term loans. The $4.5 million investment will be used to replace gear in the spinning, processing, and garmenting divisions, as well as to purchase new equipment to expand their operations and facilities.

On World Rainforest Day, Fashion for Good celebrates the success of the Viscose Traceability Pilot Project, a consortium to trace sustainable viscose in clothing using the company’s blockchain tracing solution. TextileGenesis innovator. With around 30% viscose coming from threatened forests, the validation of TextileGenesis’ solution is an important step towards transparency in the value chain and ensuring that the fibers come from renewable sources.

Hope still exists. Concerted efforts to remedy the reliance on plastic fibers has already begun, with the most recent launch of innovation consortiums like The Renewable Carbon Textiles Project in June with Fashion for Good, funded by the Laudes Foundation. In collaboration with global players including PVH Corp, the group are committed to developing replacements for fossil fuel-based fibers. By experimenting with PHA polymers, which provide a bio-based, marine and soil compostable alternative to materials like polyester, the project is pioneering viable alternatives.