Despite the challenging market climate, Eastman Naia is reasserting its commitment to sustainable investment.
At the Textile Exchange Conference in Lisbon, the fiber maker provided an update on its progress toward the sustainability goals it set five years ago and presented a “roadmap” for the work that still must be done. Additionally, it introduced new targets centered on three main action areas: combatting climate change, bringing circularity into the mainstream and caring for society.
Related Stories
“While sustainability might not be the top industry priority in 2025, we want to show that our commitment to sustainability has not been impacted by the current economic environment,” Ruth Farrell, general manager of Eastman Textiles, wrote in the Sustainability Progress Report.
To address climate change, Eastman Naia plans to lower the greenhouse gas footprint of its U.S. fiber production by 35 percent across Scope 1 and 2 by 2035. Looking further ahead, the company is targeting net-zero operations by 2050. Eastman says it is on track to meet its target of a 40 percent GHG reduction from its 2019 baseline by 2030, and to-date it has made 6.16 percent progress toward this goal.
To better measure its greenhouse gas impact, Eastman has changed its life cycle assessment (LCA) data gathering methods, transitioning from a reliance on secondary sources toward collecting primary data from its suppliers, supplemented by secondary databases. Eastman also updated its evaluations and baseline data in line with the European Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and is now using a widely adopted LCA methodology. The intent is to make the company’s LCA more accurate and easily comparable.
In another climate change mitigation push, the company aims to reach zero landfill waste for its Naia spinning production in the United States by 2030. Eastman has also committed to adhering to all of Textile Exchange’s voluntary Materials Matter Standard, which includes criteria around climate, human rights and biodiversity.
Eastman met its goal to have a Naia fiber with at least 60 percent recycled content ahead of schedule, as it launched Naia Renew ES—with the ES standing for “enhanced sustainability”—in 2022. Since the debut, the fiber has been adopted by brands like Patagonia and Reformation.
Building on this, Eastman aims to have a commercially scaled fiber on the market by 2028 that contains 60 percent apparel waste-derived content. Although Naia Renew ES does include 60 percent recycled content, just 20 percent currently comes from recycled cellulose including textiles. The remaining 40 percent is molecularly recycled materials such as plastic packaging and carpets that are turned into acetic acid.
Eastman met its goal of sourcing at minimum 25 percent of the certified recycled content for Naia from textile waste by 2025. Putting further investment toward recycling, by 2030, Eastman intends to allocate 90 percent of its research and development spend tied to Naia textiles on innovations related to sustainability and circularity.
Bringing this circular push to retail, the fiber maker plans to run at least one take-back program alongside brand partners per year. The aim of this is to provide an example of how “complex textile waste” can be used.
In circularity, there is still work to be done. Eastman fell short of its goal to have at least 50 percent of its textile product portfolio be Naia Renew by 2025, attributing this to “shifting global dynamics, delayed regulations and complex trade environments.” Looking ahead, it is eyeing 90 percent Naia Renew by 2030 as it aims to push circular fibers to the mainstream and make them more accessible. Supporting this scaling up, this year, Eastman entered a joint venture with Huafon Chemical to boost its production capacity for Naia.
“Achieving circularity at scale remains a major challenge,” said Claudia de Witte, marketing and sustainability director at Eastman Textiles. “It requires transforming feedstock infrastructure, advancing regulation and strengthening industry-wide collaboration. Together, we can help shape the systemic change our industry needs.”
At Textile Exchange, the material maker showcased three different examples of how its different Naia fibers can be used. The sporty and urban Naia on the Move concept uses blends with Naia Renew, a Naia Denim application incorporates Naia staple fiber and Naia GlowNow spotlights Naia filament yarn.
Eastman set out to be able to trace its fibers from the wood pulp or recycled content through to the factory stage by 2022, and it met this benchmark through its work with digital chain of custody solution TextileGenesis. So far, over 1.4 million Naia-containing garments have been tracked through the platform. The company’s push for traceability continues, and Eastman is working toward compliance with the digital product passport regulations in both the European Union and China by 2028, aiming to provide both digital and physical traceability for its fibers.
Along with its efforts on the environment, Eastman is focused on human impact. This starts with preserving its team’s culture and resonates out to the community and industry, as it looks to lead conversations about “safe, circular materials.” Each year, the company intends to adopt a school, teaching students about “actionable sustainability.”
Eastman is also active in advocacy for forests, adhering to the United Nations’ Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) principle that protects the human rights of indigenous peoples and recognizes them as the “stewards of natural resources and guardians of biodiversity.” For instance, following Hurricane Michael, the Eastman Foundation and GP Cellulose collaborated with The Longleaf Alliance to give 60,000 longleaf pine seedlings to help restore Torreya State Park in Florida.
“Our work is about more than textiles—it’s about making an impact on the lives of people,” Eastman explained in its report. “We engage our communities and empower them to be advocates for sustainable change in the textiles industry.”
