Forests into Fashion: How the fashion industry is turning to forests for the fibres of the future
Well since i was a kid i i don’t know if i would call myself environmentalist but i always fell in love with nature i am mark palais the director of the european forest institute i am originally from barcelona now living in the middle of the forest here in in finland our forests are hosting 80 of all the biodiversity globally they are our largest terrestrial
Carbon sink and the good news is that with the emerging technologies we can transform that wood into a totally new range of innovative bio-based solutions fashion is a is an incredible sector it’s a three trillion dollar business the fashioned industry is responsible for around five percent of the global greenhouse emissions so he’s also responsible for 20
Percent of the global wastewater and the fact that we are using oil-based materials like polyester also generate the big problem of microplastics in our oceans the change that we need to put forward is massive if you consider that we are producing roughly 100 million tons of textile fibers today wood is the only significant alternative for the textile sector
We can transform wood into a new generation of sustainable bio-based textile fibres the tree does the same thing than the cotton plant it actually produces cellulose in the case of wood what you do is you need to get it somehow out of the tree you need to dissolve it it’s very comparable to the paper industry you dissolve the cellulose and then it looks in the
End like honey then you blow air onto it and then the molecules start to arrange and suddenly you get a very beautiful fiber there has been a lot of investments in innovation to make wood-based textiles sustainable this means using circular systems where the chemicals are 99 circulated there is leoncell eon cell maybe you have heard about tencel which is the
Way that lensing commercialize but there are many other technologies and there is even now a finnish startup called spinova which does not use even chemicals at all to buy a sustainable piece of garment the difference between an environmentally acceptable choice and an unacceptable choice is as small as 20 30 cents i know that him is very interested in moving
Towards sustainable wood-based textiles i know that nike also is trying to promote recycling to produce their own footwear products i think the movement is taking place in from many different brands and using different sustainability strategies but but i think all converging into the same point that we need sustainable materials and we need sustainable processes
Patagonia stella mccartney they were indeed were trailblazers who i think made the theme more acceptable for more high street you know normal fashion brands ngos started to work on the brands consumers start to wake up consumers put you know pressure on the total value chain consumers put pressure on governments governments wake up to the challenge we get an eu
Green deal and things just start to fall into places and i think whether we want it or not the whole industry will follow we really need to connect both technology and nature i think this will be the secret of the 21st century connecting technology and nature to really rethink our economy and i think now the the secret in the coming decades is to recognize that
Our the true purpose and the true ending of our economy is nature you
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How the fashion industry is turning to forests for the fibres of the future | Rethink Sustainability By Financial Times