Nowadays, every informed person knows which industries have a large environmental footprint: fossil fuels, agriculture and livestock, transport, energy… But the elephant in the room is rarely mentioned: fashion is the third most polluting industry, responsible for up to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. And given that two thirds of this is due to materials, innovation in textile fibres could substantially reduce the environmental cost of this industry.
It seems logical that natural fibres such as cotton or wool would be more environmentally friendly than synthetic fibres such as polyester or nylon, which are petroleum-based plastics. Today, polyester is the king of textile materials, with 65% of the market compared to cotton’s 21%. Its dominance is explainable: it’s a cheap, versatile and relatively durable fibre, even more so than natural fibres. But when you consider that its production consumes some 342 million barrels of oil a year and that its CO2 emissions are more than double those of a similar cotton garment, the advice would be to stick with natural fibres.
And yet, while natural fibres may be comparatively preferable, their environmental footprint is still very high. They are products of agriculture or livestock farming, two of the sectors with the highest climate impact. In general, while natural fabrics use less energy than synthetic fabrics, they are at a disadvantage in terms of land and water use. Innovation should therefore seek materials that are not grown, or whose cultivation drastically reduces the use of these essential resources.
From crustaceans to plant fibers
Natural fabrics are essentially composed of cellulose (a polysaccharide), such as cotton, or proteins, such as wool. So any source of these materials or others with similar properties, such as chitin from crustacean shells (the second most abundant polysaccharide in nature after cellulose), is a potential raw material. Among proteins, options such as milk residues are being explored. In the case of cellulose, there are long-established alternatives like rayon or viscose, which have a history of more than a century and are derived from wood pulp. Newer alternatives include modal and Lyocell, the latter of which is made without a toxic compound used in the production of rayon.
Similarly, plant fibres derived from lotus, seaweed or corn are presented as greener options than cotton because they consume fewer resources. However, when it comes to not being dependent on a specific crop, an interesting option is to use food waste, or the part of the plant that is not used. Some examples are banana petioles (the stalk that connects the leaf to the stem), pineapple leaves, orange peel and pulp, and coffee grounds.
Some companies are already producing these fabrics: Italy’s Orange Fiber uses part of the 700 million tonnes of waste from the Sicilian orange juice industry. Spain’s Carmen Hijosa created Piñatex, an innovative non-woven textile that imitates leather and is made from waste pineapple leaf fibre. It is marketed by Ananas Anam and used by brands such as Nike.
This is one of the materials driving the vegan leather market; apart from the ethical objections some people have to natural leather, the truth is that this material also has a more costly environmental footprint than its main artificial substitute: petroleum-derived polyurethane. To replace petrochemical leatherette (fake leather), new leather-like materials are being made from fungi grown on sawdust or agricultural waste, among other plant sources such as tree bark, corn, cactus, apple peel, flowers or even kombucha, a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast used to ferment the beverage of the same name.
Limiting factors: price and environmental cost
However, without detracting from the benefits of these new materials, such as reduced water consumption and land use, there are also drawbacks, as their manufacture often involves processes and compounds that increase their environmental cost. Orange fibre also uses wood pulp, as does rayon, and Piñatex, whose raw material is biodegradable, uses petroleum derivatives in its processing. As researcher Jane Wood of the Fashion Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University writes, “this is an area that needs to be resolved to meet the demands of a completely sustainable product.”
The above refers to bio-based materials. But experts point out that to truly transform the industry, action is needed on the king of the market: polyester. One suggestion is to recycle plastic waste, such as water bottles, into textiles, which reduces the use of raw materials and can halve energy consumption and CO2 emissions. This transformation of plastic waste into clothing is presented as a way to reduce pollution, but it prolongs the problem of microplastics, which are abundant in the environment and in living organisms, and one of the main sources of which is the washing and disposal of synthetic fibres.
In short, there are many proposals, but there is always one limiting factor: price. “Textile manufacturers must create profit in order to be viable businesses,” Wood points out, and that means that any expensive and sophisticated technology has to be price competitive. Experts urge the public to abandon today’s fast fashion in favour of traditional slow fashion, to consume fewer and more expensive clothes, to extend the life of garments, to reuse and buy second-hand. But as Kenneth Pucker, professor at Tufts University, wrote in the Harvard Business Review, “asking consumers to match their intention with action and to purchase sustainable, more expensive fashion is not working.”
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