Next-gen biomaterials have generated a lot of buzz, but what will it take for them to break out of the innovation bubble and into the mainstream?
Texworld LA: Apparel Experts Examine Sourcing in the Second Half
This was the central question posed to sector experts at Texworld Los Angeles this week. There’s no silver bullet to ensure success, but there are some factors that innovators believe will impact the pace of the industry’s uptake of bio-based fibers and alt-leathers.
“This is a little bit contrarian perhaps, but price” is still an essential consideration for most brands looking to revise their material portfolios, according to Alissa Baier-Lentz, co-founder of Kintra Fibers .
“At the end of the day, sustainability is a nice to have, and frankly, we’ve seen some big market indicators that show that sustainability just isn’t enough to cut it nowadays—you have to outperform the existing materials, and you absolutely have to show a clear path to price parity that’s truly backed by unit economics.”
Baier-Lentz pointed to the bankruptcy of textile-to-textile recycler Renewcell , once seen as an industry wunderkind. Despite the fanfare surrounding its rise, the industry’s trepidation surrounding adoption—mostly stemming from the higher cost of next-gen creations—ultimately left the innovator out in the cold. Its infrastructure and IP have since been purchased by private equity firm Altor and rebranded as Circulose.
Kintra, which trades in a polyester alternative made from natural resources instead of fossil fuels, touts its technology’s ability to shapeshift, serving an array of industry needs.
“Because we are making a synthetic fiber, we literally can design performance from the molecule forward. So if we want to get hyper tailored, even within apparel, we can do that within the chemistry itself, in that fiber extrusion process and in the downstream manufacturing processes,” Baier-Lentz said. That ability has endeared Kintra to brands like H&M , Zara and Reformation.
Brands also gravitate to the fiber because it’s easy to integrate into existing supply chains, and its sustainaiblity profile can help them progress when it comes to ESG goals.
“We dye everything at lower temperatures; we do the fiber extrusion process at much lower temperatures—so we’re reducing emissions,” the co-founder added. “We’re also saving them energy, which saves money as well. So you really need to demonstrate not only a clear path to that price parity in the future, but also show those wins that you can have until you reach that mass scale where the unit economics really line up.”
Amanda Turner, vice president of product and impact innovation at Ettitude, a bamboo material innovator and home goods brand, said the firm has been expanding its supply chain and working with different mill partners as it looks to grow its commercial influence.
Scaling up as a sustainable material manufacturer has myriad challenges, one being maintaining the product’s integrity once it moves on to different players in the value chain.
“You know, as a fiber supplier and fiber innovator, you don’t have as much control over what actually happens to your textile—how it gets dyed, how it works to market,” Turner said. “So we’ve been very thoughtful about the partners that we work with. We’ve put some standards in place and guidelines for them: if you’re going to use our fiber, don’t blend it with virgin polyester, don’t dye it with toxic dyes,” she explained.
The group has also teamed with sustainable certification bodies like Bluesign to help navigate the process of integrating into supply chains that have already been validated for responsible chemistry use. “It’s a constant puzzle of trying to find the right partners and the right pieces and put that all together,” she added.
Material World: Clae, Purified's Kicks Channel the 'Tonic of Wildness'
Megan Beck, head of business development for Houston-based Rheom Materials—which develops Shorai, a bio-based extruded sheet that provides an alternative to animal skins and petroleum-based alt-leathers, as well as Benree, a resin made for injection molding—echoed the importance of creating drop-in solutions for existing supply chains.
“Benree, our plastic, works in existing injection molding,” which is a technique used globally across a multitude of industries. “You don’t have to make major changes to the machines to have it run; you’re able to use it as needed,” she said. The material is currently used for products including fashion trims like buttons, zipper pulls and buckles.
Where the company still sees challenges is not in its ability to scale, but its ability to streamline operations.
“Localizing the supply chain is extremely important. We’re producing our products in Texas, but the initial feed stock is coming from overseas, so purely from a carbon intensity perspective, we need to cut that part of it out,” she said.
“So while we will still work with international partners, you know, we want to meet people where they are, where they are, where their factories are, but we’re building a full, sustainable supply chain,” she added. “If we’re constantly shipping product back and forth across the world, the carbon emissions used in that cuts down [that impact].”
The firm is now mulling ways to nearshore certain operations to cut down on transit and ultimately shorten the value chain.
Sarah Pink, director of research, development and production for materials and finished goods at Von Holzhausen, which crafts several bio-based alt-leathers made from inputs like bamboo and plant waste, said she believes regulation is essential to pushing the industry to adopt next-gen materials.
“I think government intervention is really important to get these materials at scale,” she said.
“If you’ve got a material that’s any bit more expensive than the incumbent material, there has to be some sort of incentive for at least the large-scale companies to buy into it,” Pink added. “And I think that one of the main things that drives at least the work that we do is chemical regulation.”
Restricted Substances Lists ( RSL s) and banned chemistry are increasingly informing brands about the materials they should be purchasing. “A lot of our pitch is related to how you can future proof your materials, especially if you’re buying a contract for seven years,” she explained.
The company, which supplies both fashion and the automotive industry, sees its non-toxic inputs as a sustainable selling point as well as a means for companies to achieve compliance with increasingly stringent standards.
“So in automotive, if a customer were to potentially buy a conventional wet PU… we know that in Europe, DMF is banned,” she said, referring to Dimethylformamide, commonly used as an industrial solvent to produce films, fibers and surface coatings. “If we can convince an American company, and they say, ‘Hey, that regulation is going to come to you, purchase our material to future proof it,’ I think that’s a really powerful thing.”
Material World: Arda Turns Brew to Bag, Melina Bucher's Biobased 'Dream'
Local News
Comments / 0