Designtex Fabrics  |
The individuals at the helm of these companies – Ray Anderson, Chairman of Interface, Inc.; Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart, Designtex; and Cliff Goldman, President of Carnegie – decided at some point in their careers to strive for sustainability and change the world by the way they do business.
Recently, Designtex opened the use of its proprietary Climatex Lifecycle system of manufacturing 100% safely biodegradable fabrics to the entire textile industry.
With this move, all of Designtex’s competitors will be able to take advantage of the technology to create fabrics in a closed loop system in which all the components that go into fabric-making and all the byproducts of the manufacturing process are completely compostable.
In sharing its proprietary research and development with its competitors, Designtex embraces a new business model called “co-opetition” – sharing information to further the development of sustainable products and business practices. Designtex believes that “leadership, not ownership” is important in today’s business environment.
“It had been seven years since we developed Climatex Lifecycle,” says Bonnie Sonnenschein, corporate marketing manager for Designtex. “In that time, to our knowledge, no one else developed a 100% safely biodegradable fabric, although there was a big interest in it. It’s not really green thinking if we just hold that information secret. It’s a good product that everyone should use.”
She added that Rohner Textil, the Swiss mill that produces the fabric, was eager to open its manufacturing technologies to other companies because the mill’s methods are the “cleanest way to make fabric.”
One of the first companies to take advantage of this opportunity was the Canadian textile mill Victor Innovatex. Embracing the McDonough Braungart concept of ongoing product optimization, this new venture will provide the North American market with a domestically produced “biological nutrient” product called Climatex Lifeguard FR. According to Sonnenschein, this is the first safely compostable inherently flame retardant textile construction on the market. Designtex and Steelcase Textiles are expected to introduce the Climatex Lifeguard FR products early next year.
Designtex is also working with Victor Innovatex to redesign other fabrics making them more environmentally benign. In addition to having more environmental components, the new fabrics will be designed for continual recycling into new fabric.
Sustainable Manufacturing
“Too many businesses still choose to operate under the old ‘take, make, and waste’ model, a vestige of the Industrial Revolution. Yes, we get the products we want we create wealth, but at an environmental cost we can no longer afford. We have to learn how to measure everything we do according to ‘nature’s way’ of evaluating us,” says Paul Bennoti, director of strategic marketing for Interface Fabrics Group (IFG).
In addition to producing and marketing textiles that are better for the environment, companies are actively using mills that have sustainable approaches to production, ensuring the entire manufacturing process makes as little impact as possible – not just the materials from which the products are made.
For example, Rohner Textil, the Swiss mill that weaves Designtex’s William McDonough Collection fabrics, is renowned for its environmentally sensitive operations. Swiss government officials have determined that the process water leaving the facility is as a clean as the water entering the facility.
No waste is created during the production process. All byproducts are conceived as products. For example, the company uses selvage and trimmings from the fabric to make felt that Swiss farmer use as ground cover for crops. It is used instead of plastic to control weeds and insulate the soil. Gradually, the felt decomposes and becomes food for worms and microorganisms.
Excerpted from “Textiles for a Better Tomorrow,” Environmental Design+Construction, September/October 2001. ED+C is a SustainableBusiness.com Content Partner: [sorry this link is no longer available].
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