WAKEFIELD – The new edition of our Ecotextile News magazine – due out next week – considers some of the challenges of scaling innovations in the textiles industry following the demise of Swedish recycling pioneer Renewcell.
Our editor John Mowbray argues that the collapse of Renewcell – which was declared bankrupt at the end of last month – was the result of a combination of failure by brands, investors and the company’s own business plan.
Katherine Albertson, a former project manager with a US bio-based materials pioneer, asks whether fashion brands are really the best customers for textile innovators.
And our correspondent Phil Patterson argues that textile industry eco-innovators selling ineffective, badly marketed or over-priced technology to shopkeepers is a badly flawed business model that works for no-one.
Legislation is also a major theme of the April/May edition of our magazine after the European Council finally reached agreement on the European Union’s proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).
We take a look at what companies can do to prepare for CSDDD; hear from Fair Wear executive director Alexander Kohnstamm on the need for mandatory due diligence; and also report on French legislative efforts to tackle the industry’s impacts, which look to be on collision course with Brussels.
Meanwhile, Lavinia Muth went to visit Chile’s Atacama Desert to report on the world’s biggest mountain of fashion waste – but, after talking to local people, came away with a different story to the one she had envisaged.
We also talk to Adrian Zenz, arguably the world’s leading expert on forced labour in the Xinjiang region of China, who explains why modern slavery in the region is becoming both more prevalent and more insidious.
Simon Ferrigno’s regular Cotton Horizons column examines a new project to enable more authentic yarn-spinning – ie story telling – in cotton farming, as well as providing updates on carbon sequestration, nitrogen use and human-created climate change in the Amazon.
All of these articles and much more – including reports, analysis and opinions on the impacts of the global fashion and textiles industry – can be found in our new Ecotextile News magazine. To get your copy, subscribe HERE.
