[GRI 3-3f]
Lenzing’s most important stakeholders in circularity are described below.
Policy Hub
In 2019, Lenzing became a member of the Policy Hub in the circular economy for the apparel and footwear industry, which it has also co-chaired since May 2020. In 2022, the company actively contributed to the industry’s understanding of barriers and challenges facing the circular economy in areas such as waste and recycling technologies, transparency, and sustainable product initiatives. Lenzing has also actively engaged with the public and EU policy makers in exchanging information on barriers and possible solutions for advancing circularity.
Circular and Sustainable Textile Clothing (CISUTAC)
Since October 2022, Lenzing became a partner in the CISUTAC project that is co-funded by the EU. The consortium was established to support the transition to a circular and sustainable textile sector. Besides Lenzing, the 24 partners of the consortium include the industry association EURATEX, Södra, Decathlon and the NGO Oxfam. The aim of this initiative is to prevent, identify and eliminate barriers to the circularity of the clothing chain. For its part, Lenzing is focusing on the development of recycling processes for cellulose fibers in line with its own corporate strategy.
European Apparel and Textile Confederation (EURATEX)
EURATEX is the European Apparel and Textile Confederation, representing the interests of the European textile and clothing industry at the EU institutional level. Lenzing has contributed to EURATEX, and its latest project ReHubs to further promote circularity in the textile industry.
The goal of ReHubs is to set up an integrated system based on recycling hubs in Europe to recycle textile waste and industrially scale up the collection, sorting, processing and recycling of pre- and post-consumer materials. Lenzing plays an active role in the “Transform textile waste into feedstock” project within the EURATEX ReHubs initiative led by Texaid.
By the end of 2024, Europe will face the challenge of organizing a separate collection of textile waste and ensuring proposal disposal option of the collected waste. At present, there is no large-scale plan across Europe to reuse and recycle the current 7.5 million tons of textile waste.
Accelerating Circularity Project (ACP)
ACP’s mission is to design and implement systems in which textile waste is repurposed as a raw material and is no longer incinerated or sent to landfill. With this model, materials will be constantly reused or recycled, and textile waste will itself become a valuable resource. With collaborative work along the entire supply chain, the organization managed to run trials that have been successful in creating fabrics with recycled content. Lenzing has contributed to the trials with its TENCEL™ REFIBRA™ technology. The collected information is designed to help the entire industry to learn from this approach and identifies the potential for commercial products based on a cost-effective circular textile supply chain. Lenzing welcomed the opportunity to be a Board representative of this organization that envisions a textile world that is restorative and regenerative by design. As well as being a founding partner of the project in the US in 2019, Lenzing became a project partner in Europe in 2021. It was still a project partner in 2023.
Accelerating Circularity’s Alliance of Chemical Textiles Recyclers (ACTR)
Lenzing is a founding member of ACTR alongside industry players like Eastman or Lycra. The working group began in 2023 in response to requests from Lenzing’s partners to help educate the industry about chemical recycling. As a first step, ACTR is introducing a dictionary of basic terms developed to provide the industry with a better understanding of chemical textile recycling. Through ACTR, it will also be possible to meet and address the textile industry with a common voice.
Textiles 2030
In August 2021, Lenzing was one of the pioneering signatories of the voluntary Textiles 2030 agreement. Textiles 2030 is Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP)’s expert-led initiative in the UK designed to limit the impact of clothes and home textiles on climate change. It represents a voluntary agreement that is funded by its signatories and the government. Signatories will collaborate on carbon, water and circular textile targets, as well as contribute to national policy discussions. With its manufacturing facilities in Grimsby in the United Kingdom, Lenzing is honored to take part in this initiative for proactively fostering circularity and systemic change in the textiles industry.
Renewcell
In December 2022, Lenzing and Renewcell, a Swedish textile-to-textile recycling pioneer, signed a multi-year supply agreement to accelerate the transition of the textile industry from a linear to a circular business model. The agreement contains the sale of up to 100,000 tons of Renewcell’s 100 percent recycled textile Circulose® dissolving pulp to Lenzing over a five-year period, for use in the production of cellulosic fibers for fashion and other textile applications.
Södra
To further speed up the technological development of textile recycling followed by an expansion of capacity for generating pulp from post-consumer waste, Lenzing began collaborating with Södra, another leading global pulp producer, in 2021. The goal is to recycle and process 50,000 tons of textile waste per year at Södra’s Mörrum site by 2027. This project, named “Textile Recycling in Europe AT Scale”1 (LIFE TREATS), is supported by an EU subsidy of EUR 10 million as part of the LIFE 2022 program2, to further develop the innovative OnceMore® recycling process. Starting in the second quarter of 2023 and over the next four and a half years, the next step will involve the construction and management of a facility for joint process development and the extension of the OnceMore® process.
In November 2023, their long-lasting and effective partnership was awarded the ITMF Award 2023 in the “International Cooperation” category for their collaborative efforts in textile recycling and circular economy.
Forum for the Future
Lenzing is a participating member of the project Enabling Systemic Circularity in Fashion (ESCF) by Forum for the Future. It is an action inquiry that investigates the enabling conditions for innovations to achieve their potential in supporting the vision of a circular, regenerative, responsible and resilient fashion value chain, as well as the systemic barriers that are currently preventing this. The project’s approach is to take a systemic lens to the enabling conditions and barriers encountered. This is explored through the participation of a mix of unique suppliers and brands which cover different perspectives, helps to learn best practices from each other and understand current status of industry to envision a circular future for the industry. There are several working groups such as business models, innovative materials and waste processing. In 2023, Lenzing was involved in the project and participating in workshops and working groups to contribute with its know-how as well as make progress for its circularity strategy and ambitions.
1 Disclaimer LIFE22-ENV-SE-TREATS – 101113614 is co-funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or CINEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them