The company LanzaTech has announced a collaboration with the textile group Inditex. Fabrics that were produced with carbon emissions should be integrated into the joint collection. Can fast fashion use it to reduce its negative footprint?
The partnership between the Spanish fashion giant and the US company LanzaTech, which specializes in the biotechnological recycling of carbon, was announced on December 13th. The Inditex group, to which the Zara brand belongs, wants to show with the collaboration that it takes the subject of research and development seriously by examining the possibilities offered by SMEs in the textile industry. The innovative material offers undreamt-of possibilities for fast fashion.
The result of the collaboration is a capsule collection of evening dresses made from fabrics whose polyester yarns are the result of a biological process that prevents carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Specifically, LanzaTech initially captures emissions from steel production in the form of Lanzanol (ethanol), which would otherwise get into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. The Lanzanol is then recycled through a fermentation process and converted into low-carbon monoethylene glycol by India Glycols Limited, which is then converted into low-carbon polyester yarn by Far Eastern New Century (FENC).
Fashion has changed since 2005. That year, the textile industry was liberalized with the repeal of the Multifibre Agreement (as part of the creation of the World Trade Organization), removing the last barriers that prevented full globalization of production routes. Retail began a race to minimize production costs while increasing the number of collections and increasing sales. This production model, which relies on global just-in-time production chains to bring down prices, has increased both production and consumption.
Fashion’s CO2 emissions have skyrocketed over the past 30 years
The result: The production and use of our clothing causes around four percent of greenhouse gas emissions, is responsible for 25 percent of global water pollution and for a third of the microplastics that end up in the oceans. So the industry’s carbon footprint has risen sharply over the past 30 years and could continue to grow in the next few years. One of the largest emissions items in the textile industry today is due to the use of certain raw materials: cotton and polyester, the consumption of which rose from 12 million tons in 1995 to 58 million tons in 2019. The production of one kilogram of synthetic fibers, which are the result of petrochemical processes, emits 17 kilograms of CO2.
If the public debate has recently turned to the issue of waste (an issue exacerbated by the pandemic that produced large quantities of unsold goods), it must be recognized that the climate issue and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions are of the utmost importance. A good starting point for Zara, which opens the dialogue on this topic and another reason to be happy for Lanzatech, which is constantly entering into new partnerships. After collaborating with Total and L’Oréal to produce the first sustainable packaging based on industrial carbon emissions in the middle of the pandemic, the company went a step further last year and announced a collaboration with Lululemon Athletica to do so worldwide First to produce polyester and fabric yarn using emissions from recycled carbon.
How much carbon can be saved in the fast fashion sector is still unclear, but it gives hope.
This article was previously published on FashionUnited.uk. Translation and editing: Barbara Russ.