Advanced Processing Matrix
The Advanced Processing Matrix (APM) aims to continue Fashion for Good’s efforts to accelerate the shift from wet to mostly dry processing in the fashion industry by validating innovative textile processing technologies with potential to drive CO₂e reduction, alongside improvements in water and chemical usage. The tool serves as the knowledge resource for Future Forward Factories aiming to transform facilities into near Net-0.
What's the challenge?
While many innovators have demonstrated promising results through lab or demo-scale trials in D(R)YE Factory of the Future project, significant gaps remain in assessing the scalability, environmental impact, and commercial viability of these technologies at an industrial level.
Real-time factory floor data is critical for validating the true potential of these technologies to decarbonise the supply chain and reduce the use of other resources such as water and chemicals.
About the Tool
By conducting thorough assessments at an industrial scale, the Advanced Processing Matrix seeks to provide actionable insights into the environmental impact and performance benefits of these innovations. This living database, helps stakeholders compare innovations and incumbent technologies across technical, environmental, and performance metrics. The landscape of solutions assessed across Tier2 steps (pretreatment, colouration and finishing) includes disruptive innovations as well as more established innovative technologies delivering improved environmental outcomes. The goal is to foster informed decision-making, supporting the adoption of innovations in the fashion industry with the potential to decarbonise and reduce water consumption.
The radar graphs above present a summary of the insights drawn from the Advanced Processing Matrix. Each assessment has been benchmarked against the relevant conventional processes that the innovation seeks to replace. The results, grouped by technology category, have been evaluated and scored across three key dimensions—Price, Technology, and Impact—and are visualised accordingly in the radar charts.
The Impact dimension includes energy efficiency, along with water and chemical savings. Technology refers to quality and accessibility, while the final dimension, Price, focuses on payback time.
Each axis of the radar chart represents one of these categories, providing a profile of each technology across six evaluation criteria. The further a technology extends towards the outer edge, the stronger its performance in that area—indicating, for example, greater impact savings, better compatibility, or increased ease of implementation.
In contrast, a smaller area closer to the centre suggests lower average scores across the dimensions, reflecting reduced impact savings, weaker performance, or greater challenges in implementation.
Evaluation Criteria
Impact:
- Water Savings: Reduction in water consumption compared to the baseline case.
- Chemical Savings: Reduction in chemical use compared to the baseline case.
- Energy efficiency: An aggregation of the technology’s overall energy savings compared to baseline and its electricity vs thermal energy ratio.
Technology:
- Accessibility: Ease of deployment and integration into existing lines; includes installation time and process compatibility.
- Quality: Reflects performance across key quality tests (e.g. colour evenness, fastness, hand feel).
Price:
- Payback time: Estimated time required to recover investment costs based on operational savings.
PRE-TREATMENT
Plasma
Plasma treatment uses ionised gas to clean or activate fabric surfaces without water or chemicals. It enhances adhesion, removes impurities, and can apply functional coatings, all with low energy use and no effluent.
Enzymatic Pre-treatment
Instead of harsh chemicals, enzymes are used to prepare fabrics for dyeing in a gentler, more sustainable way. This method saves water and energy, improves fabric quality, and is safer for workers and the environment.
COLOURATION
Digital Spray
Digital spray technology applies dye and finishing chemistry directly onto fabric using precise nozzles. The process is digitally controlled, uses minimal water, and significantly cuts down on chemicals and dyestuff compared to traditional dyeing.
Gravure Printing
Gravure printing transfers ink from tiny engraved cells on a roller directly onto fabric, enabling high-quality, repeatable patterns. It is a mostly waterless, energy-efficient process that uses digital controls to engrave the rollers precisely.
Supercritical CO2
This technology replaces water with pressurised CO₂ to dye fabrics in a closed-loop system. It eliminates water effluent, reuses both dye and CO₂, and reduces chemical and energy use.
Dope Dyeing
A method of colouring man made fibres by incorporation of the colourant in the spinning composition before extrusion into filaments or fibres. While this is not a new technology, it has the potential to drastically reduce resource consumption in the colouration process.
Digital Printing
Digital textile printing is an inkjet-based printing method which enables the printing of high-quality designs from a digital data file onto different fabrics. The ink is deposited in the form of minuscule droplets by the digitally controlled printing heads. It is a mostly waterless process and reduced energy use as no dye bath is needed.
FINISHING
Plasma
Plasma treatment uses ionised gas to clean or activate fabric surfaces without water or chemicals. It enhances adhesion, removes impurities, and can apply functional coatings, all with low energy use and no effluent.
Digital Spray
Digital spray technology applies dye and finishing chemistry directly onto fabric using precise nozzles. The process is digitally controlled, uses minimal water, and significantly cuts down on chemicals and dyestuff compared to traditional dyeing.
Ecosystem Partners
Relevant Resources
What is textile processing? Understanding the fashion supply chain and its environmental impact
D(R)YE Factory of the Future
Fashion for Good launched D(R)YE Factory of the Future in January 2022 in collaboration with brand partners Kering, adidas, PVH Corp. and manufacturing partners Arvind Limited and Welspun India with the aim of validating the most promising technology combinations in pretreatment and colouration processing steps to support the widespread adoption of mostly waterless innovations within the textile industry.
Fashion Players Team Up to Slash Textiles' Water and Carbon Footprint
Fashion for Good Launches D(R)YE Factory of the Future Project
Other Projects
Sorting for Circularity Rewear
Fashion for Good expanded its Sorting for Circularity framework to address the challenge of sorting for rewearable textiles to understand better their resale potential and the demand across the second-hand market. We launched an 18-month initiative in January 2024 in collaboration with Circle Economy, brand partners adidas, Inditex, Levi Strauss & Co. and Zalando to enhance the sorting of rewearable textiles using innovative AI technologies. The project seeks to improve garment recovery for resale, promoting circularity in the fashion industry.
Behind the Break
Behind the Break is a multi-phase research initiative developed by Fashion for Good in collaboration with The Microfibre Consortium. The project takes a research-led approach to advance the fashion industry’s understanding of fibre fragmentation, addressing uncertainties in existing testing protocols and key knowledge gaps. By supporting the development of a more credible and consistent foundation, the initiative aims to enable stakeholders to make informed decisions and take decisive action to mitigate fibre fragment pollution, while leveraging the best available science.
Feedstock Activation Europe: FAE
Project FAE (Feedstock Activation Europe) is an initiative led by Fashion for Good to channel post-consumer textiles as feedstock for textile-to-textile recycling at scale. It addresses a core gap in the value chain: today, sorters cannot viably prepare post-consumer material at the price, quantity and quality recyclers require, leaving most non-rewearable textiles with no viable destination.
