Increasing transparency, for Lenzing, crystalizes as a multipronged mission to help achieve a wholly sustainable textile industry. Through its fiber technologies and thoughtful take on consumerism, Lenzing is fostering increased transparency in fashion by strengthening relationships between brands, consumers, and suppliers to propel the fashion industry in a more sustainable direction.
Sustainability, in all its facets, is the future of the fashion industry-at-large. A recent McKinsey & Co. report found that 60 percent of fashion executives have already invested – or plan to invest – in closed-loop textile recycling by next year, while consumer demand for nuances such as material origin, ethical production and fair labor have increased considerably.
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In Lenzing’s Sustainability Report 2021, which was published in April, the brand outlines its sustainability targets that collectively aim to increase transparency. Its report tracks Lenzing’s own sustainable innovations and, in detail, updates on the progress made in achieving its short- and long-term goals.
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Technology is the backbone of the approach Lenzing has taken to fulfill its commitment to supply chain transparency, according to Florian Heubrandner, Vice President Global Textiles Business at Lenzing AG. With its Fiber Identification technology that launched last year, Lenzing wards off counterfeits by way of authentication for products made of TENCEL™, VEOCEL™ and LENZING™ ECOVERO™ branded fibers.
“From the fiber all the way to the finished garment, our Fiber Identification technology enables complete traceability across the entire production process. Relying on physical identification of a fiber’s origin at the yarn, fabric, and garment level, the technology guarantees that Lenzing fibers have been produced where high standards of environmental responsibility have been met.”
Heubrandner added that for a massive industry so susceptible to greenwashing, brands and retailers can use its technology to “guarantee that their products have not been made with raw material stemming from controversial sources.”
Also launched with the TENCEL™ brand’s network of collaborators in mind is Lenzing’s E-Branding Service platform. On a retail level, Lenzing explained, the platform’s system offers brands a solution to clarify the benefits of a sustainably made product through applications on its platform for product license, swing tags and other branding materials, allowing consumers to easily verify that a product has been made with high-quality Lenzing fiber and have the confidence that a product has been responsibility made.
“We know that our retail partners work hard to make their brands stand out, and for the sustainably minded consumers, it can be difficult to identify brands that have a responsible production process, especially when there’s little transparency into the kinds of fibers used in their clothing and manufacturing methods employed,” Heubrandner noted.
In the ever-evolving TENCEL™ universe, the brand said it will continue to see ways to enhance transparency to each step of the supply chain. “I envision that the future for textile transparency lies in digitalization,” Heubrandner predicts. “Our own digital transformation journey began several years ago, with our partnership with TextileGenesis™, for example, allowing us to embrace tools such as blockchain to support traceability in the supply chain. We have plans to continue leveraging digital tools to foster wide-scale transparency.”
Beyond all this, Lenzing said that working closely with its partners in the value chain is a key step in accelerating progress. “Lenzing joined the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC) in launching the Higg Transparency Index program for this very reason, with the goal to provide consumers with credible product information, evidenced through data,” Heubrandner shared.
“Our commitment does not end there, as we aim to see the program’s realization in stages. By early 2023, the goal of the program is to incorporate social data from facilities, becoming the first holistic system for communicating sustainability performance across a product’s lifecycle.”
Harold Weghorst, Vice President of Global Marketing & Branding, Lenzing, said that its focus will remain on building solutions that improve and evolve the industry. “While we continue to advocate for innovation in sustainable raw materials, we will continue to go beyond fibers and look for new ways to engage brands and consumers, enabling them to embrace sustainability anytime, anywhere.”