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.
Problem Statement
The apparel industry faces the challenge of meeting the stringent 1.5°C target set by the Paris Agreement. Emissions in the industry are estimated to represent 2-8% of global greenhouse gas output and collective action to reduce emission towards net zero by 2030 is imperative. Equally pressing is the industry’s significant water footprint, which strains planetary boundaries and impacts global water resources.
Brands are increasingly focused on reducing emissions throughout their value chains, particularly scope 3 emissions, as they represent a big portion of any company’s emissions and that share is especially outsized for fashion. The supply chain step that demands the utmost attention is processing or Tier 2, accounting for 55% of the total fashion value chain emissions. Processing steps – pretreatment, coloration, and finishing – pose both a challenge and an opportunity for intervention. Shifting from traditional wet processing methods to mostly dry processing technologies has the potential not only to reduce water consumption, but also, to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions associated with heating large water baths required for conventional methods.
Executive Summary
The project included multiple phases of testing, data collection, and analysis of results. Trials were conducted across five different fibre types—polyester, cotton, wool and cotton blends—resulting in almost 300 lab trials involving more than 14 fabrics and yarns. These trials aimed to validate the technical feasibility of the innovations, both individually and in combination, to identify the most promising solutions for further scaling and industrial implementation. The results from a quality perspective indicate that some of the tandem solutions aligned well with commercial standards for colour fastness and met performance requirements.
Fashion for Good’s Impact Team conducted Screening Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) and the results showed there were impact savings associated with all three categories and most significantly, in, blue water consumption (BWC). Furthermore, this analysis demonstrates that the potential OPEX savings from reduced water and energy use can offset the high CapEx typically required for innovative technologies.
The project demonstrated the potential of mostly dry-processing pretreatment and colouration technologies, both individually and in tandem, to significantly reduce the environmental impact of the overall processing of textiles. The validation conducted through this project has established a critical pipeline of innovations for further validation and implementation with select strategic suppliers.
Goals of the Project
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Identify promising processing innovations and combinations in pretreatment and colouration in cotton, denim, polyester, wool and cotton/polyester blend work streams through lab and pilot trials.
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Validate the technologies through running lab & pilot scale trials and performance testing.
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Assess the impact of the selected combinations across key impact categories
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Facilitate the scaling of the technologies by putting innovators, brands and supply chain partners together and through knowledge sharing.
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Provide a pipeline of validated innovations to feed into the Strategic Supplier Initiative, which is aimed at catalysing implementation of market ready technologies in selected suppliers
Project Results
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Rigorous stage-gate validation is essential: The technology validation roadmap needs to follow a stage gate approach. Lab / pilot scale trials executed in the D(R)YE Factory project are an invaluable early stage indicator of a technology’s performance and impact savings potential. However, to drive implementation, manufacturers need to have comprehensive factory floor data to properly evaluate the feasibility of these solutions as a basis for investment decisions.
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Avoid combination complexity at early stage: Combinations of innovations across pre-treatment and colouration create a lot of variables and add complexity at the lab and pilot stages of the validation roadmap. We’ve learned that it is more efficient and effective to focus on individual validation at the lab/pilot stage and move towards combination testing only at industrial scale, once the solutions have shown promising results on an individual basis.
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Performance and Impact are context specific: Assessed technologies showcased significant potential for impact savings in energy and water, but capturing real-time factory floor data is required for more accurate impact, technology and performance assessment. Moreover, accurate calculations require selecting the appropriate base cases (e.g. spray dye can replace CPB as well as exhaust processes), ensuring that comparisons are made within the right context.
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Next Steps: The insights from this project have inspired our next workstream, the Advanced Processing Matrix, as a comprehensive data repository hosting solutions across all processing steps, from pretreatment, colouration to finishing solutions. With solutions being assessed through pre-industrial trials on the factory floor. The Matrix also evaluates innovators against the landscape of incumbent innovative solutions across their technical ability, environmental impact, cost, performance and ease of factory integration. As such, it will contain key metrics to allow decision makers to evaluate the solutions against their existing factory floor set up.
Stakeholders Involved
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Innovators: Alchemie Technologies, Deven Supercriticals, eCO2Dye, GRINP, Indigo Mill Designs, Stony Creek Colors, Imogo and MTI-X.
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Manufacturers: Arvind Limited, Welspun India
Relevant Resources
Fashion for Good Launches D(R)YE Factory of the Future Project
In Conversation with Alchemie Technology: Transforming Dry Processing for Textile Dyeing and Finishing
Other Projects
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.
Behind the Break
“Behind the Break,” is a project aimed at exploring textile fibre fragmentation. The research aims to identify the root causes of fibre shedding during manufacturing, enhance existing test methods, and inform future industry best practices and policies to reduce textile pollution. A report accompanies the project, providing an overview of existing knowledge gaps, recent developments, critical insights, and emerging opportunities for meaningful action within the fashion and textile industry.
Closing the Footwear Loop
The “Closing the Footwear Loop” project is a major initiative led by Fashion for Good, bringing together 16 leading fashion and footwear brands and their existing circularity programs to tackle the complex challenges of circularity in the footwear industry. The project aims to transform the current linear “take-make-dispose” model into a circular one.
