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Reflections from the D(R)YE Factory of the Future Project

Fashion for Good launched D(R)YE Factory of the Future in January 2022 with the aim to validate the most promising technology combinations in pretreatment and colouration processing steps to support the widespread adoption of mostly waterless innovations within the textile industry. The validation conducted through this project has established a critical pipeline of innovations for further validation and implementation with select strategic suppliers.
Image by Fashion for Good.


The Problem

The apparel industry faces the challenge of meeting the stringent 1.5°C target set by the Paris Agreement. Emissions in the industry are estimated to represent 2-8% of global greenhouse gas output and collective action to reduce emission towards net zero by 2030 is imperative. Equally pressing is the industry’s significant water footprint, which strains planetary boundaries and impacts global water resources. 

Brands are increasingly focused on reducing emissions throughout their value chains, the so-called scope 3 emissions, as they represent a big portion of any company’s emissions and that share is especially outsized for fashion. The supply chain step that demands the utmost attention is processing or Tier 2, accounting for 55% of the total fashion value chain emissions. Processing steps – pretreatment, coloration, and finishing – pose both a challenge and an opportunity for intervention. 

Shifting from traditional wet processing methods to mostly dry processing technologies has the potential not only to reduce water consumption, but also, to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions associated with heating large water baths required for conventional methods. Fashion for Good is at the forefront of validating and fostering the adoption of these transformative technologies, highlighting their critical role in revolutionising textile production for Good.

 

Objectives

  • Identify promising processing innovations and combinations in pretreatment and colouration in cotton, denim, polyester, wool and cotton/polyester blend work streams through lab and pilot trials.

  • Validate the technologies through running lab & pilot scale  trials and performance testing

     

  • Assess the impact of the selected combinations across key impact categories 

     

  • Facilitate the scaling of the technologies by putting innovators, brands and supply chain partners together and through knowledge sharing. 

     

  • Provide a pipeline of validated innovations to feed into the Strategic Supplier Initiative, which is aimed at catalysing implementation of market ready technologies in selected suppliers 

Leadership: The project was led by Fashion for Good The Fashion for Good partners involved were Kering, adidas, PVH Corp., Arvind Limited, and Welspun India. 

Innovators: The innovators who participated were Alchemie Technologies, Deven Supercriticals, eCO2Dye, GRINP, Indigo Mill Designs, Stony Creek Colors, imogo and MTIX

Duration: Phase I: Q1 2022 – Q2 2023  Phase II: Q3 2023+ evolution into Advanced Processing Matrix

Geographical Scope: EU, UK, India and USA.

 

The Project

Fashion for Good launched D(R)YE Factory of the Future in January  2022 with the aim to validate the most promising technology combinations in  pretreatment and colouration processing steps to support the widespread adoption of mostly waterless innovations within the textile industry. By moving away from water-intensive processes, these technologies have the potential to significantly reduce the environmental footprint of textile processing, making them a crucial component of the industry’s path to cleaner production methods.

This foundational project brought together key industry players by leveraging a consortium structure and harnessing the collective expertise and resources of its members, including major industry players (and Fashion for Good partners): adidas, Kering, PVH Corp., Arvind Limited, and Welspun India.

After extensive due diligence, eight innovators—Alchemie Technologies, Deven Supercriticals, eCO2Dye, GRINP, Indigo Mill Designs, Stony Creek Colors, imogo and MTIX—were selected to participate. The technologies included plasma and laser treatments, spray dyeing, supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) dyeing, and foam dyeing1. They all hold significant potential to revolutionise the textile industry by substantially reducing its environmental footprint.

The project scope included multiple phases of testing, data collection, and analysis of results. Trials were conducted across five different fibre types—polyester, cotton, wool and cotton blends—resulting in almost 300 lab trials involving more than 14 fabrics and yarns. These trials aimed to validate the technical feasibility of the innovations, both individually and in combination, to identify the most promising solutions for further scaling and industrial implementation. The results from a quality perspective indicate that some of the tandem solutions aligned well with commercial standards for colour fastness and met performance requirements. Other combinations like MTiX x Alchemie showed that minor improvements were needed to reach those benchmarks.

Fashion for Good’s Impact Team conducted Screening Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) for each workstream of the project to identify environmental hotspots based on three key impact categories: global warming potential (GWP- IPCC AR6 GWP 100), eutrophication potential and blue water consumption (BWC – CML 2001) against an identified conventional baseline. The results showed there were impact savings associated with all three categories and most significantly, in, blue water consumption (BWC). Furthermore, this analysis demonstrates that the potential OPEX savings from reduced water and energy use can offset the high CapEx typically required for innovative technologies.

The project demonstrated the potential of mostly dry-processing pretreatment and colouration technologies, both individually and in tandem, to significantly reduce the environmental impact of the overall processing of textiles. The validation conducted through this project has established a critical pipeline of innovations for further validation and implementation with select strategic suppliers.

Consult the Fashion for Good Textile Processing Guide for more information on each of the technologies.

Key Findings

  • Rigorous stage-gate validation is essential

    The technology validation roadmap needs to follow a stage gate approach. Lab / pilot scale trials executed in the D(R)YE Factory project are an invaluable early stage  indicator of a  technologie’s performance and impact savings potential. However, to drive implementation,  manufacturers need to have comprehensive factory floor data to properly evaluate the feasibility of these solutions as a basis for investment decisions. So, larger pilots and pre-industrial trials is what is needed next!

     

  • Avoid combination complexity at early stage

    Combinations of innovations across pre-treatment and coloration create a lot of variables and add complexity at the lab and pilot stages of the validation roadmap. We’ve learned that it is more efficient and effective to focus on individual validation at the lab/pilot stage and move towards combination testing only at industrial scale, once the solutions have shown promising results on an individual basis. 

  • Performance and Impact are context specific 

    Assessed technologies showcased significant potential for impact savings in energy and water, but capturing real-time factory floor data is required for more accurate impact, technology and performance assessment. Moreover,  accurate calculations require selecting the appropriate base cases (e.g. spray dye can replace  CPB as well as exhaust processes) , ensuring that comparisons are made within the right context.

What’s next?

Creation of a data repository across all available processing solutions
The insights from this project have inspired our next workstream, the Advanced Processing Matrix, as a comprehensive data repository hosting solutions across all processing steps, from pretreatment, colouration to finishing solutions. The solutions will be assessed through pre-industrial trials on the factory floor.

The Matrix will also evaluate innovators against the landscape of  incumbent innovative solutions across their technical ability, environmental impact, cost, performance and ease of factory integration. As such, it will contain key metrics to allow decision makers to evaluate the solutions against their existing factory floor set up.

Call for Innovations:

As we are building our Advanced Processing Matrix we are on the lookout for innovative solutions across (innovators and established companies) all processing steps (machinery, chemistry) that can engage in production runs on the factory floor to assess your solution from a technology,  impact and performance point of view. 

If you are interested in getting involved you can contact us at: innovations@fashionforgood.com

 

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