Mill Memo: Latest Circularity News and REFIBRA™ Denim from the Americas
Since in-person trade shows are still put on hold this fall, Carved in Blue is taking an opportunity to digitally connect with its community.
COVID-19 has created challenges, but it has also ushered in a “Great Reset,” allowing companies to pause and accelerate their sustainable efforts.
We touched base with denim mills in the Americas to catch up on their latest initiatives to address circularity and SDG 12: responsible consumption and production. We also got the inside scoop on the newest ways they are using TENCEL™ x REFIBRA™ Lyocell in their creations.
CONE DENIM
Mexico
Pierette Scavuzzo, design director
Carved in Blue: How are you addressing SDG 12?
Pierette: SDG 12 addresses “doing more and better with less.” It is a great mantra to incorporate into our design, manufacturing, sourcing and wellbeing of our employees and community. Our facilities are guided by our code of conduct, which ensures responsible treatment of our people and responsible usage of natural resources. Our facilities undergo annual third-party social compliance audits. We have committed to reducing our carbon footprint by 2.5 percent each year through 2030, and are in the process of developing science-based targets for greenhouse gas reductions. We have committed to reducing our water usage by 25 percent by 2025, and to purchasing 80 percent sustainable cotton by 2025.
We are driving the practices of responsible consumption and production from the initial design stages. We are committed to diverting as much waste as possible from the landfill. Some recent examples of this: upcycling our dye waste into a new yarn, upcycling our mill scraps into a recycled yarn. We are also partnering with garment contractors where we take their cutting room waste and put that waste back into a yarn that gets made into a product.
Another shift we are implementing is reflecting on every fabric that we develop: reducing the amount of fabrics that we would typically release into a season. Our goal is to make what is needed and inspire, but not to overdevelop and create more textile waste. This will be an ongoing mission for us. It’s incredible how we are finding new sustainable innovations coming to market at a rapid pace. The community is committed together in solving for sustainable consumption.
Carved in Blue: What new fabrics have you developed with REFIBRA™ Technology?
Pierette: We are really excited to re-highlight some of our best REFIBRA™ fabrics such as Piper. Content is 69 Refibra/21 Cotton/6 Repreve/4 Lycra. It is a super soft stretch in one of our “distilled indigo” shades, an indigo shade that consumes less water, chemicals and energy.
GLOBAL DENIM
Mexico
Anatt Finkler, creative director
Carved in Blue: How are you addressing SDG 12?
Anatt: Moving towards more sustainable patterns of consumption and production, Global Denim is working day by day to sustainably manage and use efficiently natural resources, starting with the way we consume energy that is 100 percent clean and renewable, to our waterless dying programs and care of green areas. We work on safe chemical management, CO2 reduction and waste management and recycling programs. Our aim is to avoid waste and recycle and reuse as much as possible to mitigate the impacts on the environment.
On our proud Ecoloop program, we are recycling all of our denim scraps, PIW and PCW, and turning into new cotton yarn to make new denim constructions, and adding them to our fabrics. With this we eliminate waste and move towards circularity.
Carved in Blue: What new fabrics have you developed with REFIBRA™ Technology?
Anatt: Unfortunately we don’t carry REFIBRA™ in this collection, but are looking forward as demand grows to start testing and including this on future collections.
TAVEX
Mexico
Arlethe Sánchez, marketing and sample room coordinador
Carved in Blue: How are you addressing SDG 12?
Arlethe: To ensure preservation, people are increasing the care of our planet. Consumers are opting for products that can hold their value, that are timeless and with a longer shelf life. Tavex is a pioneer in sustainable practices; we are constantly working to ensure that every stage of the denim production process becomes sustainable, from the fibers to the finishing process.
Our products are designed with recycled fibers (TENCEL™ x REFIBRA™, cotton, spandex and polyester). We are members of the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI) and Cotton LEADS. We utilize postindustrial recycled cotton in our fabrics and 100% of our cotton is procured in USA which is a warrantee of good practices.
Tavex has also created an innovative dyeing process to reduce the amount of rinse water compared to the conventional production by up to 85% called Water Conservation Technology (WCT). On the other hand, with our wastewater treatment plant, water can be recycled and return to our production process once the contaminants components have been removed, in several stages such as washing, dyeing or heat treatments. We are also recovering rainwater.
We use liquid indigo, the most sustainable in the world that has obtained several certifications such as Bluesign®, Cradle to Cradle, Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) and GreenScreen®. With this indigo we have managed to reduce the consumption of indigo reducers (caustic soda and sodium hydrosulphite), sending less chemicals to the wastewater treatment plant, improving the quality of wastewater, and reducing the amount of sludge. Likewise, the work environment is cleaner in the productive areas through the removal of indigo powder.
We also have created a dyeing technology: Laser Sensitive Denim (LSD), which is much more sensitive to laser and that is focused on achieving higher contrasts than with the traditional dyeing process, positively impacting garment and laundry plants, where the processes of hand sand and local potassium can be eliminated, achieving shorter processes, water consumption reduction and a healthier work environment.
In addition, 100% of our fabrics use organic sizing and no synthetic chemicals, we do not use harmful substances which are proven by Oeko-Tex Certification and 70% of our factory is powered by wind energy.
These are our family groups for this season AW2122, all based in sustainable philosophy: CARE DENIM (antiviral protection), EARTHY NATURALS (ecru sustainable fabrics), PRESERVING OCEANS INITIATIVE (recycled polyester), NOSTALGIC COZY (authentic appearance + TENCEL(TM) Lyocell + recycled cotton), ECO STRETCH (power stretch + TENCEL(TM) Lyocell), COTTON LESS DENIM (use of TENCEL(TM) Lyocell instead of traditional cotton).
Carved in Blue: What new fabrics have you developed with REFIBRA™ Technology?
Arlethe: TENCEL™ Lyocell is one of the most popular fibers in the industry and REFIBRA™ Technology (which is even more sustainable) is something that we need to have. We are working on a collection including REFIBRA™ for next season.
VICUNHA
Brazil
German Alejandro Silva, chief marketing officer
Carved in Blue: How are you addressing SDG 12?
German: Vicunha is a genuinely Brazilian company and the largest producer of jeans in Latin America. We are pioneers in positive practices in the jeanswear industry, with the premise of optimizing cleaner, more conscious processes and minimizing environmental and social impacts, acting with transparency and efficiency.
We have taken numerous initiatives, including the construction of a broad sustainable business platform, reaffirming our commitment to the management of limited resources and people. Some of the positive impact practices assumed in our production chain include:
- 140 million liters of rainwater are captured and used at our units in Northeast Brazil every year.
- 2.1 million liters of water are saved each month by reusing treated domestic effluent; 700,000 liters of water are recovered every month through the optimization of the washing processes of the WTP filters.
- Reverse osmosis technology is used in the production of water for boilers, reducing the waste of this resource by 1.5 million liters per month.
- We are the only textile company in the world able to recover caustic soda in the denim finishing process.
- Every month, 30 less tons of caustic soda are sent to the company’s effluent treatment plant and 600,000 liters of water are recovered.
- We replace fossil fuels with renewable fuels such as biomass; we pioneered the use of cashew nut bark as fuel for steam generation.
- We use BCI (Better Cotton Initiative) cotton and ABR (Responsible Brazilian Cotton) in all products.
- In addition to recycling waste from the production process, which is transformed back into cotton yarn, Vicunha uses polyester fibers derived from PET bottles, as well as REFIBRA™ Technology, the first fiber made from cellulose, which employs the recycling of cotton waste in a new TENCEL™ Lyocell fiber.
- We use technologies in dyeing processes that reduce the volume of water consumed, as well as natural starches in the preparation of the yarns, thus facilitating the biological process in effluent treatment.
To provide transparency in our processes, every year we also share open data of our production. Highlights include:
- Recycled cotton: 7,000 tons of internal recycling with textile waste from the process in the form of yarn.
- CO2 compensation: a reduction of 30,000 tons by trading the use of fossil fuels for renewable biomass.
- Energy saved: 11,000 MWh were economized by substituting over 23,000 fluorescent lamps with LEDs and by introducing high-performance motors in all factories.
- Water saved: 83 million liters were economized through the recovery of caustic soda and the reuse of water in the process.
All these processes and technologies allow and reinforce Vicunha’s position, commitment and pioneering spirit in minimizing environmental and social impacts, enabling lower consumption of water, energy and chemicals.
Vicunha possesses all the certifications and participations in platforms that attest our conduct regarding this SDG: ZDHC, Higg-SAC, ISO 14000, GRS, Oeko-Tex. It holds the Global Recycled Certificate, the Management System Certificate and, in 2010, it renewed the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 certificate, a European green label that verifies that the indigo is environmentally friendly. In addition, it possesses ISO 9002 and 14000, and is one of the first Brazilian companies to acquire these certificates.
Carved in Blue: What new fabrics have you developed with REFIBRA™ Technology?
German: In partnership with Lenzing, in late 2019, we launched the first two denims made in Brazil with 100 percent recycled cotton, containing REFIBRA™ Technology in their composition.
The articles Timber and Cypress are part of our V.Eco Absolut line, composed of other pioneering jeans without dyeing, thanks to the reuse of cotton.
Both are heavy denim. Timber weighs 11.8 oz and has a composition that is 56 percent REFIBRA™ and 44 percent cotton, while Cypress weighs 9.8 oz, with a composition that is 46 percent cotton, 32 percent polyester, 20 percent REFIBRA™ Lyocell and 2 percent elastane, all of the polyester yarn having been recycled from PET bottles.
The rest of the cotton used in the fabrics comes from our internal production processes that allow us to reuse the cotton residues from previous stages, transforming them back into fiber.