Data from the World Economic Forum shows that the fashion industry and its supply chain are responsible for ten percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions every year – representing a significant call to action for manufacturers and brands to find solutions for better practices.
With its iconic LYCRA® brand franchise, strong commercial network and global production footprint, The LYCRA Company saw a great opportunity to collaborate with Qore® – a joint venture between Cargill and HELM – to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of LYCRA® fiber. The LYCRA Company is making great strides toward enabling the world’s first large-scale commercial production of bio-derived spandex made with QIRA®.
What makes QIRA® so special is its sustainability benefit, driven by its feedstock: Iowa field corn. While currently spandex is made primarily from petroleum products that are a finite resource, adopting QIRA® will enable The LYCRA Company to make bio-derived LYCRA® fiber at scale. With 70 percent of the new LYCRA® fiber content derived from field or industrial dent corn from Iowa, QIRA® will reduce reliance on fossil-based resources. Importantly, the new, renewable LYCRA® fiber made with QIRA® has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions up to 44 percent* versus spandex made with traditional raw materials. The new fiber will be used across many garment types from leggings to intimates to jeans and more.
“Since the largest impact category for our fiber is raw materials, we knew we had to focus on our ingredients to help reduce our footprint and meet our sustainability goals,” said Julien Born, chief executive officer of The LYCRA Company.
Taking a collaborative approach to tackling industry issues and important topics of vital interest to customers and their consumers is not new for The LYCRA Company, and according to Born, partnering with Qore® was a natural decision.
“By adopting QIRA®, we are making a significant commitment that will also enable our customers, including mills, brands, retailers and manufacturers of personal care products, to help reduce their product footprints,” said Born. “As we are now committed to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), this collaboration with Qore® is a testament to how we are prioritizing our company’s focus on lowering our carbon emissions and environmental impact.”
Jon Veldhouse, chief executive officer of Qore®, agreed, saying that “as sustainability is a collective effort, and innovation is key to achieving our common goals, we are very excited about this alliance and the potential to play a role in the textile industry’s journey toward decarbonization.”
In terms of decarbonization, Born shared that it is a key component of The LYCRA Company’s vision. “The time to act has never been more urgent, and through collaborations such as this one with Qore®, we can scale up new technologies to reduce our footprint faster and more efficiently.”
Operations at the Qore® facility at Cargill’s biotechnology campus and corn refining operation in Eddyville, Iowa will commence in mid-2024. The facility will source field corn within a 100-mile radius, which takes advantage of the positive growing conditions in the area and provides local farmers with a reliable market for their crops. Renewable LYCRA® fiber made with QIRA® is expected to be available in the fourth quarter of next year.
Source: https://wwd.com/