Specials

Quite famously known as the ‘Green City in the Sun’, Nairobi has a bunch of students from its leading university figuring out an “incredible alternative” on how to use agro-waste, specially from maize—the principal staple food of Kenya—and pineapple, connecting the farming community to fashion in a way that both people and the planet not only survive but thrive.

The Finnish city of Lahti, some 100-odd km to the north of capital Helsinki, has made stupendous progress through its incentive-based collection of textile waste, and has now launched a design competition on how to tackle discarded textiles.

A Planet Tracker analysis—Following the Thread—recently underlined the significant disconnect between the location of the majority of the sales, profits and capital in the textiles industry and the location of the most significant negative environmental impacts. Richard Wielechowski, Senior Investment Analyst (Textiles) at Planet Tracker, tells texfash.com what this disconnect means.

In the textiles-fashion ecosystem, news is usually ephemeral. But when Swedish innovator Renewcell dispatched the first shipment of its Circulose dissolving pulp to a customer, the excitement remained palpable for weeks on end. Tricia Carey, Chief Commercial Officer at Renewcell, talks about the flurry of activities at the company.

A leading manufacturer of specialty viscose fibres, Kelheim Fibres GmbH, has a portfolio of functional biodegradable viscose fibres for unique products. Marina Crnoja-Cosic, Director – New Business Development (Marketing & Communication) talks to texfash.com about the ongoing innovation, the route taken on sustainability and how the market for viscose is shaping up.

It is disappointing to see that a lot of companies still do not see the urgency of how important it is to source sustainable cotton. There is still so much fear around transparency of where the cotton comes from, the volume and certifications used. The just-released 2023 Cotton Ranking report by Solidaridad Network and Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK) shows that the gap between frontrunners and laggards is getting bigger.

Jargon-laden and flowery sustainability reports by a majority of top brands and retailers would come across as a heap of gobbledygook if their actual performance is taken into account. Well, certainly for the cotton sector. As many as 89% are still non-transparent, unsustainable and show little progress towards improving labour conditions, says the 2023 Cotton Ranking just published by Solidaridad Europe and the Pesticide Action Network UK (PAN UK).

A painstaking, exhaustive analysis of documents by University of California (UC) researchers has revealed that the chemicals industry used all nefarious tactics in the playbook to delay public awareness of PFAS toxicity and, in turn, delay regulations governing their use.

Even as Indonesia’s Royal Golden Eagle Group (RGE) with its four subsidiaries flatly denies all allegations made in the recently released Pulping Borneo report, the publishers of the investigative study have dismissed the denials as “insufficient.” A texfash.com report.

Dr Laurie Parsons is Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. His new book Carbon Colonialism explores the murky practices of outsourcing a country's environmental impact, where emissions and waste are exported from rich countries to poorer ones; a world in which corporations and countries are allowed to maintain a clean, green image while landfills in the world's poorest countries continue to expand, and droughts and floods intensify under the auspices of globalisation, deregulation and economic growth. Parsons in conversation with texfash.com.