How Innovation Is Shaping Sustainable Sportswear

Transcript

How Innovation Is Shaping Sustainable Sportswear

SOUNDBITE  00:05

The average American woman is buying 64 new articles of clothing per year, half of which are worn three times or less 

SOUNDBITE  00:14

fashion is a gigantic weapon of mass construction.

Tom Parker  00:02

The clothing industry is facing a problem. The process of making clothes is damaging the planet and our take, make, waste economy is fueling more harm. So as a sector, there needs to be some serious changes if we’re to hit Net Zero.

Jules Lennon  00:56

Imagine you leave a bath running and starts to overflow, you could grab some towels and try and mop up that water. But it doesn't solve the problem, you need to turn off the tap.

Tom Parker  00:18

I'm Tom Parker, and welcome to the next five podcast brought to you by the FT partner studio. In this series, we ask industry experts about how their world will change in the next five years, and the impact it will have on our day to day. In this episode, we're focusing on the clothing industry, specifically the sportswear and Apple rail sector. And I'll be speaking to some of those trying to tread a more sustainable path towards Net Zero. 

Tom Parker  00:45

Today, more clothes are being made than ever, 80 billion garments a year in fact, yet, we're using them less. Between 2000 and 2015 the production of clothing doubled, while the amount actually used decreased by almost 40%. 

Every second, 17 cubic metres of textiles - equivalent to a garbage truck- is either incinerated or sent to landfill. Every second. just think about that….for a second.

But it’s not just about waste, the manufacturing process is harming the planet in more ways than one.

Tom Parker  01:24

Making products uses huge amounts of energy, land, raw materials and water, 1 cotton tshirt uses 3,000 litres (that’s 100 showers in normal terms), and when it comes to C02 the industry produces 2 billion tonnes a year, or 4 percent of global emissions. If the industry is to meet its goal of halving CO2 emissions by 2030 each sector must focus on its own actions proportionately.

04:24 (V1)

Within the wider industry, sits the sportswear sector. Historically, a niche market for fitness and outdoor junkies, but the last decade has seen a 40% growth in global sportswear imports, and the pandemic led lockdowns saw spikes in activewear demand as home fitness routines became the norm. The industry in 2021 was worth 366 billion dollars, and is estimated to be worth half a trillion dollars in 2026. 

Which means people are buying products and a lot of them.

UPSOT SOUND OF BUYING

Like the rest of the clothing industry, it suffers from the same problems. 

Jules Lennon  02:19

Today, pretty much the entire global economy operates under the same model. We take resources from the ground to make products and materials that are either wanted or needed. And then after an incredibly short amount of time, they're thrown away. It's a wasteful linear system.

Tom Parker  02:42

This is Jules Lennon from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

Jules Lennon  02:45

So the Ellen MacArthur Foundation is a charity that's committed to changing that built on three principles: eliminate waste and pollution, circulate products and materials and regenerate natural systems. That is a circular economy. And we work with businesses, academics, policymakers, and institutions to mobilise systems solutions that achieve that around the world. Clothing today is not designed to be reused, remade or recycled. Our research shows that less than 1% of the materials used to make clothes are currently recycled back into clothes after use. And as a consequence, it's quickly ending up in landfill or incinerators. It's having a huge impact on climate pollution and biodiversity. The linear system I just described is not working for our planet, it's not working for our growing population. Imagine you leave a bath running and stop overflowing, you could grab some towels and try and mop up that water. But it doesn't solve the problem, you need to turn off the tap. If we want to create a thriving nature positive industry, we need a radical transformation of the way products are designed, made and used. If we're

Tom Parker  05:40  (V1)

That’s a good point. How do we radically transform the way products are designed and made? How important is innovation in this area?

Jules Lennon  04:26

Without innovation, we will never achieve a circular economy. And as complicated as all the innovations that are needed to address all the barriers that there are and all the gaps we need to overcome to achieve it. And one of the most common things we see is hesitancy to even try to even get started. And actually the most exciting thing is when you see organisations either independently or collectively go through The Innovation funnel of having this idea of thinking about what is possible because the whole premise is doing things completely differently, not trying to make tiny tweaks in the existing linear system. But really question, why is that even like that? Do we even need that product? Should that product even be designed in that way? Or, actually, what's the best customer experience that we could have? So can we deliver that item in a completely different way? So, by nature, designing for a secretary economy is about curiosity and about rethinking is innovative, so we won't achieve it if we don't innovate.

Tom Parker  05:46 (V2) 00:59 

The materials used in sportswear are a major cause of harm to the environment. Cotton, polyester, spandex and nylon are the most commonly used fabrics, the latter 3 are all synthetic materials made from petroleum derived plastics.

In the wider clothing sector, 70 million barrels of oil are used each year to make polyester, that’s equivalent to a 6th of the current US strategic oil reserve. 

01:20

The wider shoe market alone in 2020, was responsible for 1% of all global carbon emissions. And while that doesn't sound a lot, it's a gigantic number. Given that air travel is responsible for 2.5% of co2 emissions, Thus, dependency on plastics and petroleum is the biggest challenge for the sportswear industry to overcome if it is to hit net zero. But thanks to innovation and sustainable technologies, we're starting to see impactful results.

06:21

When you have a look at a shoe today at a performance footwear today, then 99% of the shoes and off the shoe are made from crude oil. 

Tom Parker 04:23

This is Niels Altrogge Head of Technology Innovation at a sportswear brand that has spent the past five years developing a new foam, called Clean Cloud, which is made from carbon emissions. 

06:42

We were thinking about, hey, every material in the world is made out of carbons in crude oil. So if we can replace the carbons with a much more renewable resource, this would be a major step to making our products more sustainable. Where do we find carbons? We find them and we have a lot of carbon emissions in co2 in our atmospheres and in greenhouse gases. So we had this idea why not make a material out of carbon emissions and this is how everything started. So the solution we're using today is we are taking carbon emissions from the industry of gases before they're going into the atmosphere with a partner called Lanza Tech, we are transforming the carbon emissions into ethanol. This is an alcohol by a fermentation process sounds complicated, but it's basically like beer brewing. Afterwards, this article is transferred into a monomer, which is a smallest puzzle part of a plastic. And finally, with our partner Borealis, this small puzzle parts a monomer is synthesised into the final polymer, the EBA which is further produced into our mid source. 

Tom Parker  08:09

It's amazing when you think about it. My first reaction is why hasn't anyone done this before?

08:15

So this idea was born around four years ago. A lot of people when we started this, we're not believe that this was possible. A lot of people said or were saying hey, you will never make it. And our first step now was to show it is possible you can make a material which can be used for running shoes from carbon emissions. We told our head of material innovations for the very first time about the idea. His reaction was a guy. This is wild, but let's do it. And a little bit of this mood we carried throughout the full project.

TAKEN FROM ORIGINAL ON INTERVIEW AT 1:07:49

Clean cloud REMOVE SLIGHT PAUSE is the first REMOVE MASSIVE PAUSE EVA made from carbon emissions. 

TOM 6:30 (V1): 

EVA is Ethelyne vinyl acetate, commonly known as foam rubber.

And the great thing is we do not only use this in our running shoes in the midsole to provide our cushioning, but also this material can be used in different other industries in the mobility industry in the car industry in the health care industry in the packaging industry, but also using it for mattresses. So EBA is a polymer which is used very, very widely. And this is a great thing about clean clouds. It's not only a material innovation for the footwear industry, but much beyond it's an innovation which can help many other industries to move away from fossil resources. 

Tom Parker  (V2)02:00 This is Fred Smith, President and Founder of the Competitive enterprise Institute speaking back in 2002 ahead of the World Summit on Sustainable development

BRING SOUND UP And there was an I.Q. test and one of the questions was why does it? All I'll float on water and little Johnny looked up at her with big eyes and said well ma'am. I guess it's because people don't care anymore. That kind of a story illustrates that we've done a brilliant job of making people care about the environment. But we've done very very little about explaining to them. How we might do something about it. 

Tom Parker   (V2) 02:56

This hits home what greenwashing is: ‘talking the talk, getting people to care, and thinking that you care, but not really doing anything about it.’ and as the soundbite suggests it’s nothing new .

04:05

Nowadays the word sustainable is thrown around a lot by companies across all industries. For sustainability to be meaningful, trust needs to be built across the whole value chain, consumers need to know what they’re buying and investors need to know where their money is going. 

Jules Lennon  09:29

Greenwashing is a growing problem. And one way to tackle that is transparency, and being really really specific about the claims that you're making. It is really important and actually even accessing the ability to make information available to all actors in the supply chain is actually quite nascent, but things like products that justifies chemical inputs, materials that are used in production practices are really, really critical to allow a common understanding of accessibility, comparability and clarity. Additionally, even the ability to trace products, components and materials, as well as the social and environmental conditions in which they were made along the whole supply chain, including after use is critical again, but still nascent. One thing we are starting to see is technology as an enabler to track and trace garments in the application of sorting, and collecting known for reuse and recycling, but it's still limited. 

Tom Parker  11:24

And what about you Neil's? How does a company like to keep its supply chain transparent and subsequently as sustainable as possible? In fact, can you take us on your shoes typical journey across the supply chain.

11:36

So to describe how a shoe is made, we start with the raw material. So we have a raw material supplier. The different materials are then forwarded to different suppliers or manufacturers who do the different parts of the shoe, the different parts afterwards get shipped to a partner, which is doing the assembly so putting all the parts together before then the final shipment into the warehouse. And from there on to the consumer, we use data to improve our products is how we assess the footprint. So we have an internal team of experts who are assessing the carbon footprint of a product along the full supply chain. So starting with the raw material going to the manufacturing, the production, the transportation, but even the usage of the product by the runner. So we are calculating as an example, how often will a pro be washed even to assess the carbon footprint. And then of course, the end of life solution, which is today unfortunately, most of the time burning the product. So we're using this interdisciplinary approach by looking at the different dimensions and looking at the different stages of the supply chain. To assess step by step what our product will have an impact on. And this is a number we will use together with our management when we decide for new products if a product goes into range or not. So if we are not improving the footprint of a product or the impact by a certain amount, even it feels amazing. We're not doing it. So we really learn Hey, sustainability and performance has to go hand in hand in this data driven approach.

Tom Parker  13:21

Last year, the US alone imported seven pairs of shoes for every man, woman and child in the country. With a population roughly 330 million, that’s a lot of shoes. So much that annual sales topped $100 billion. With that as a backdrop, how are we motivating governments, companies, investors and of course consumers to move towards sustainable purchases when they're currently buying so much?

Jules Lennon  13:43

So from a customer perspective, there shouldn't be bad choices. When shopping. It's as simple as that everything should be a good choice, which then means that for that to be a reality. We need businesses to take action, looking at designing opportunities to ensure that products could be repaired to lengthen their lifecycle options for sharing, leasing and reselling close to also remanufacturing and refurbishing materials, and designing clothes that can be disassembled and made into something else. The landscape in which businesses are operating today means that they're increasingly realising that the traditional way in the make take waste, linear economy they've done business is no longer working for them in the long term and they need to shift to a circular economy.

Tom Parker  14:36

Niels how important is a circular business model to ON and for any business leaders listening to this episode. How can they move from a linear to a circular business model, whilst also, importantly, remaining competitive.

14:51

When we have a look at the industry today then we see a pure linear industry we produce, buy , use and throw weight. And one important step is to reduce the waste in the world to really reduce the carbon footprint to reduce the use of fossil resources is to create a circular business. So taking back the products will be a crucial part and will be a business innovation which has to happen over the next few years. And when you have a look at the dimensions of circularity, then you do not only see a product innovation, so making a product recyclable is already like a huge project by itself. We now demonstrated this with our project Cyclon. And with the first model cloud Neo, we created a fully recyclable shoe, which is in addition, majority biobased. And you only can own it by subscription. So you have to send it back until you get the new one. This is how we try to educate our customers that basically a shoe when it's worn out has still a very high value, we need it back because this is material we can make a new product from but this is only only one part right? The full back loop logistics. So how do we get the shoe back? What do we do with the warehouses? Where do we recycle them? This is something which does not exist today. And this is why we have to spend so much effort in different areas of the business to create a circular model. It is what we are doing with cycling at the moment. It's the same real life experiment together with everyone who's out there and loves to wear it.

Tom Parker  16:28

Look, it's now time to look at the next five years. What's the most exciting prospect? And what do you expect to see happen for the sportswear industry in particular.

Jules Lennon  16:38

So firstly, mindset shift, we need to see organisations tracing problems back to their root causes and tackling it there by design. Rather than just addressing the symptoms, we expect to see an increase in ambition, attention and investment in circular business models, things like CO creating infrastructure for circular business model operations, and new models potentially beyond rental and resale that work for the sport sector and others to make sure clothes are kept in use. Additionally, we expect to see an increase in policy to support the creation of those enabling conditions for the circular economy to emerge at scale, which would apply for the sport sector and others. And lastly, a shift in production of materials that have natural positive outcomes. So my greatest hope, because we need this, is that we will see a mindset shift to create an economy that is regenerative by design. And my fear is that we won't see these changes, I hope, we will shift the focus from extraction to regeneration. Instead of continuously degrading nature, we will actually build natural capital and we will move to a regenerative model and begin to emulate natural systems. There is no waste in nature. When a leaf falls from a tree it feeds the forest for billions of years, natural systems have regenerated themselves. Waste is a human invention.

Tom Parker  18:28

Nils, what about you? Where will you be in the next five years, not just for ON but the sportswear industry in general?

18:35

The full industry has to focus on material innovation on Supply Chain Innovation, and as well on where and how we produce. So these are the three areas. So definitely material innovation going away from fossil resources going into biobased resources going into recycled materials and going into materials for example, out of carbon emissions on the supply chain side we have to simplify supply chain to integrate vertically to educate the supply chain, build new supply chains and especially build an after life supply chain. And then the last part is the manufacturing. So going away from a centralised manufacturing of the industry in Asia into a system where we are producing near the market to have a shorter supply chain to reduce transport but also to push innovation forward. These are the trends the full industry should and is focusing on and on is doing this, especially with initiatives like clean cloud with initiatives like Cyclon and also with initiatives to decentralise our manufacturing. My personal goal is to contribute to decarbonizing the industry by moving away from fossil resources, changing linear industry in a circular industry and reading Finding how people see products, how people experience products, and of course, how products are made. Personally, I'm a passionate runner, and I love to be outside. I'm living in Switzerland, nature is such a big part of life and everyday is life, we are going out into nature when we are going for lunch with the full team. And in the end, maintaining this possibility and maintaining our playground, where we can do the things we love, and spend time outside. This is just a big motivation. And on the other hand, I'm working in a whole industry and I know exactly what the impact of industry has on this environment. So for me, it's very clearly I do not only want to deliver, deliver and develop great products, but also I want to be a part of a movement with make sure that in a few decades and or even a few 100 years, also other people, my kids and many people in the future will be able to enjoy what I can enjoy today.

Jules Lennon  21:04

I truly believe that we can reimagine global systems, so people and the planet can thrive. And the way we can get there is working collaboratively with businesses, and governments and NGOs to completely rethink the way that products are designed and made and used. And that together, we could create a natural positive industry. The question is not whether it's possible, but what we will do together to make it happen.

Tom Parker  07:18 (V1)

This is really the point, there has to be a reimagining, a reimagining of the world we see now, and the world we want to live in in the future, whether it's foundations like Ellen MacArthur, or companies like ON, that are bold enough to not just dream, but believe in that dream, and start to make a difference. Just because it's been done this way or that way before doesn't mean it can't be changed for the better. It might cost more in R&D. And like Niels, you might be heralded a madman to suggest such an innovation. But if your goal is to make an impact, then you have to take that first big, bold step. The thing is, you won't walk alone. Sustainability imperatives are also 

being driven by the consumer and that’s across multiple generations. Nearly 90% of Gen X consumers, those born between 1965 and 1980 are willing to spend 10% or more for sustainable products today. That's compared with 34% Just two years ago. Gen Z, The New Kids on the block, are also willing to spend 10% more and are the generation least likely to reduce spending on sportswear specifically, despite inflationary fears and lower buying power than their elders. They are also being heralded as the Sustainability generation, with the majority making purchasing decisions based on sustainable retail practices, principles and morals. So times are changing. Brands, like On, will gain a competitive advantage by putting sustainable decision making and climate strategy at the heart of the design stage, material choice, and recycling initiatives. It’s not just a good deed, it's better for business, better for the planet, and better for us all. Step by step. We'll get there. But if we've learned anything today, we probably will start to run a bit faster and a bit further.