Material Innovation Vs Massive Scale

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Key Takeaways:

Inditex has launched a €50 million ($54.75 million) fund to back start-ups developing sustainable materials and technologies, aligning with its long-term sustainability strategy that includes reducing water consumption, emissions, and waste across its supply chain.

While Inditex, Pangaia, and H&M invest in and experiment with plant- and bio-based alternatives to reduce environmental impact, something that remains a major obstacle to sustainability is high production volumes.

True progress requires reducing output alongside innovating with sustainable materials, and an overemphasis on innovation should not eclipse some of fashion’s biggest names addressing some of fashion’s most urgent challenges.

With the headlines focusing firmly upstream, this week’s stories are a window into supply chain and sourcing strategies that are shifting more quickly than ever. Right now, The Interline is collecting anonymous perspectives from professionals who work in these areas, to inform a new report coming soon – in partnership with Bamboo Rose.

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Tension between investments in material innovation, and fashion’s massive scale

Inditex, the parent company of Zara, has launched a €50 million ($54.75 million) fund to invest in sustainable initiatives. Managed by Mundi Ventures, the fund will align with Inditex’s strategy to support startups focused on developing eco-friendly materials and technologies aimed at reducing environmental impact.

Alongside this latest announcement, the Spanish conglomerate has some ambitious sustainability goals. These include a 25% reduction of water consumption in their supply chain by 2025, and by 2030, to halve emissions in the design and manufacture of products, their distribution and their end-of-life management, and to use only textile raw materials that deliver a lower impact on the environment. Then by 2040, achieve zero net emissions by reducing their carbon footprint by at least 90% by comparison with 2018.

To achieve this, Inditex has been experimenting with new types of recycled fibres, one example being Infinited Fiber Company’s Infinna, to reduce waste and fund research into new recycling methods, and also investing in start-ups like CIRC, that will allow textile products made of polyester and cotton blends to be recycled on an industrial scale. Inditex predicts that 25% of garments will be made from newly-created fibres that do not yet exist at an industrial scale.

This sounds a lot like Pangaia (who most will know as a brand but defines itself as a “materials science company”) which has been developing bio- and plant-based materials since 2019. The company recently released a new outwear line, the DNA Flower Warmth collection, made using Pangaia’s FLWRDWN and FLWRFLL technology. FLWRDWN is down-fill made using a combination of wildflowers, a biopolymer and aerogel, and FLWRFLL a material made using a combination of wildflowers, lyocell, and a biopolymer.

According to Pangaia, wildflowers are used due to having a “down-like microstructure perfectly suited to high-performing personal insulation” and the ones used in their products are grown without pesticides or artificial irrigation to prevent pollution and save water. The wildflowers used directly support habitat conservation and are hand-picked to ensure the highest quality.

Earlier in October, Pangaia also released a new tote bag (called GAIA) made of a new textile called Mirum, developed by the technology company Natural Fibre Welding (NFW). The bio-based material uses natural inputs like responsibly sourced clays and rubber – creating a high-performance, plastic-free and animal-friendly alternative to leather.

With Inditex moving more in Pangaia’s direction with their material innovation it’s clear that they are going the extra mile to distance themselves from the fast fashion company category. In an interview with the Financial Times from 2023, non-executive chairman (and daughter of the Inditex and Zara co-founder, Amancio Ortega Gaona) Marta Ortega Pérez said: “fast fashion suggests a compromise to quality, which is completely the opposite of what we look for.”

PANGAIA Alternative Leather Tote Bag – Black

Quality aside, Zara produced 621,244 tonnes of clothing in 2022 (not disclosing how many actual garments were produced, but Financial Times estimates that it is somewhere in the ballpark of 450 million garments annually, with 20,000 new styles each year.) In the same interview, Ortega reiterates: “We don’t recognise ourselves in what they call ‘fast fashion’… Because that brings to mind the amount of unsold items and poor-quality clothes focused on a very cheap price, and that cannot be further from what we do. On the other hand, we have a business model that is focused mainly on customer demand, so we react to that.”

With their high output, year-round (irrespective of the possible small amount of inventory left over from each collection) Inditex has what it takes to be known as a fast fashion brand – whether the label is accepted or not. That’s not to say that their efforts towards sustainability aren’t commendable. Their sustainability strategy, with the sort of targets they’re aiming for, is imperative for the fashion industry as an example of how far brands need to buy into being more responsible. But the sheer volume of production still leaves an environmental impact, even with more eco-friendly garments.

The case is perhaps not so with Pangaia, but bigger brands (and their parent companies like Inditex and H&M) should not get a free pass when it comes to sustainability just because of their investment into technology, material science, and innovation.

H&M has also been very active in material innovation investment – also being a major investor into Infinited Fiber Company, while using grape leather, Circulose (recycled cotton and viscose made into a biodegradable pulp), Orange Fibre, and other food-crop waster, according to their website. The Swedish juggernaut also recently supported Syre, a new recycled synthetics venture, in collaboration with engineering firm Vargas and backed by a $600 million offtake agreement.

The thing is, while H&M has indicated that it wants to recycle 100% of its clothing by 2030, it currently produces over three billion garments yearly. For their goal to be met would mean that every garment bought in the coming years would have to eventually be recycled – a figure north of a billion clothing items that customers could be expected to return to a recycling site, assuming that a third of all clothing reaches its ‘end of life’ in a given year. H&M also stated in its 2023 Sustainability Report that it intends to double its revenue by 2030 while halving its greenhouse gas emissions. A tall order.

So while working towards a future where products made with innovative materials that conform to the highest standards of sustainability, performance, and design is necessary, production volumes still need to be taken into account. No matter how much innovation or money brands funnel into solutions, there will still be a harsh environmental cost if output is not slowed down. Innovation, without addressing the quantity of production, risks becoming an exercise in offsetting one problem with another, rather than making meaningful progress.