Over the past several years, three distinct leaders have emerged in the field of sustainable textiles. For Interface Fabrics Group (IFG), Designtex and Carnegie, designing new fabrics isn’t so much about determining what colors and types of fabrics will sell to the broadest audience. Instead, it’s about balancing customer satisfaction with environmental responsibility. These companies have spent the past decade developing textiles made from environmentally safe, recycled and/or safely biodegradable materials and implementing manufacturing processes that embrace environmental sustainability.

Although the US Green Building Council’s LEED™ rating system and other green building programs have helped increase the demand for these sustainable textiles, the real impetus for change has come from the companies themselves — from leaders such as Susan Lyons, executive vice president/creative director for Designtex; William McDonough, architect; Michael Braungart, chemist; Ray Anderson, chairman of Interface, Inc.; and Cliff Goldman, president of Carnegie. These individuals have each decided at some point in their careers to strive for sustainability — to change the world by changing the way they do business. They are paving the way for others to follow, and are creating a new, more sustainable textile industry in their wake.

Recyclable And Compostable Fabrics

Rough & Tumble Terratex textiles from Carnegie are available in 10 colors inspired by the natural hues of flowers and fauna.

New environmental textiles are designed for a wide variety of applications, from corporate offices to transportation and from cruise ships to retail establishments. And while manufacturers are striving toward environmentally sound products and practices, they have not forgotten the importance of making the textiles work for designers.

Today’s textiles are more environmentally friendly and are available in a wide variety of colors, patterns and textures. Terratex®, a family of textiles from IFG, is made from 100% recycled materials, such as post-consumer and post-industrial waste. Post-consumer recycled polyester can be made from many materials, including soda pop bottles, while post-industrial recycled polyester is made from recycled PET chips. Other Terratex fabric collections include fabrics made from reclaimed wool products.

“For the reclaimed wool products, we take back apparel garments and pull them apart to re-use the fibers,” said Paul Bennotti, director of strategic marketing for IFG.

IFG’s Terratex fabrics are available from many suppliers, including Carnegie and Designtex.

In addition to being a supplier of IFG’s Terratex, Carnegie Fabrics also has its own environmentally friendly product line. The company introduced Xorel, a woven chlorine- and plasticizer-free polyethylene textile, in 1981 and has been continuously improving the designs, colors and performance of the fabric since then. Carnegie recently discovered a way to bond Xorel to a high-performance chlorine- and plasticizer-free PETG, a polyester resin, to create a hard surface material called Xorel Surfaces, a product that it introduced at Neocon 2001. The Xorel Surfaces line combines colors, patterns and textures of woven textile with the strength and flexibility of a rigid material. Available in 38 designs and 400 colorways, the product looks like woven textiles while meeting high-traffic demands. Xorel can be translucent or opaque, and the surface can be embossed or textured with patterns. The material itself can be drilled, cut, bent, tapped in and heat draped to suit designers’ needs.

Designtex, another Terratex supplier, also has its own environmental textile line. Its Climatex® Lifecycle™ textiles, first introduced in 1995, are manufactured in a closed-loop system, meaning that all the components that go into making the fabrics and all byproducts of the manufacturing process are completely compostable.

“To our knowledge, Climatex Lifecycle is the only 100% safely biodegradable fabric manufacturing system,” said Susan Lyons, Designtex executive vice president/creative director.

According to Lyons, the 100% safely biodegradable system represents a new model of sustainability, where the manufacturing processes and elements — fibers, dyes, chemicals and energy sources — are as ecologically safe as the end product. Additionally, the fabric and its trimmings can be composted at the end of its useful life as upholstery.

All components of Climatex Lifecycle are put through “intelligence filters,” where each potential dye and process chemical is analyzed, and any substances known or suspected to be carcinogenic, mutagenic, teratogenic or bioaccumulative, or disruptive to human or animal endocrine systems are eliminated.

In addition to high environmental performance, the fabrics are also designed for high end use performance. Made from a patented blend of wool and ramie, the fabric both insulates (wool) and wicks moisture (ramie) away keeping the sitter dry and comfortable. All Climatex Lifecycle fabrics pass the Association of Contract Textiles (ACT) performance standards, and some fabrics even exceed those standards.

Designtex named these innovative fabrics the William McDonough Collection in honor of their creation — the result of a successful collaboration with architect William McDonough and chemist Michael Braungart of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) and with the Rohner Textil mill in Switzerland. And that collaboration has continued, resulting in several new fabric constructions. In April, Designtex introduced two new Climatex Lifecycle fabrics featuring two new constructions. Arbor, a Natural Stretch™ fabric, has characteristics of an elastic textile, without the use of synthetic stretch yarns; while Moss is an elegant worsted sateen in 14 colors. As with all Climatex Lifecycle fabrics, both Arbor and Moss are completely and safely compostable.

“We’re past just making traditional upholstery,” said Bonnie Sonnenschein, corporate marketing manager for Designtex. “The whole idea is that this should be the way all fabric is made. So the more we can introduce new ways to use it, and more colors and more constructions, it just becomes a better way to do business.”

Sustainable Manufacturing

Smooth Operator from Carnegie is a piece-dyed panel fabric woven of Terratex environmental fabrics. Materials found in nature, such as stone, metal and glass, influence the textile’s color palette.

A product that incorporates environmentally safe and/or recycled materials can be considered a good product. But the end product is only a small part of the equation. That’s why textile manufacturers also are considering the manufacturing process and what will happen to fabrics after their useful lives when designing their products.

“People know the buzz word ‘recycle,’” said Cliff Goldman, president of Carnegie. “That’s very easy for Americans. But that’s not all that being an environmental product means. It’s really about the entire cycle of production, use and disposal.”

Other textile companies agree with Goldman — not only in theory but also in practice, where it matters the most.

“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 and we create wealth, but at an environmental cost we can no longer afford. We have to learn instead how to measure everything we do according to ‘nature’s way’ of evaluating us,” said Bennotti.

In addition to producing and marketing textiles whose materials are better for the environment, companies are actively using mills that have sustainable approaches to production, and they are scrutinizing their textiles to ensure that the entire manufacturing process makes as little impact on the environment as possible — not just the materials from which the product is made.

For example, Rohner Textil, the mill that weaves Designtex’s William McDonough Collection fabrics, is renowned for its success in environmentally sensitive operations. Regular reviews of the amount of energy and water use, as well as energy and water quality, support the continuous improvement throughout the facility. These efforts, combined with the focus on ecologically, socially and economically effective materials and chemicals, have resulted in a profound success unique to this Swiss factory. Government officials have determined that the process water leaving the facility is as clean and pure as the water going into the facility.

Unlike most products, where waste is created in the processing, there is no waste created during the production process of Climatex Lifecycle. All byproducts are conceived as products designed to safely return to biological systems. For example, the company uses the selvage and trimmings from the fabric to create felt that Swiss farmers use as ground cover for crops. The felt is used in place of conventional plastic to control weeds and insulate the soil. Gradually, the felt decomposes and becomes food for worms and microorganisms.

IFG also actively keeps track of its manufacturing processes’ impact on the environment. The groups’ mills practice internal quality control measures to ensure that as little energy, water and dye is used as possible in manufacturing its textiles. The mills also work to decrease the solid waste they generate and the amount of virgin materials used in their products.

“Terratex is not just about recycled content,” Bennotti said. “It’s also about the manufacturing process and having information about the product readily available.”

Sharing Sustainable Business Practices

The William McDonough III Collection from Designtex includes the new fabric called Moss. It features sateen construction in 14 colorways, ranging from deep red and ochre to greens, blues and yellows. The fabric is made from 74% wool/26% ramie, and it meets 40,000 double rubs on the Wyzenbeek test.

Recently, Designtex, in conjunction with William McDonough and Michael Braungart of McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) and the Rohner Textil mill, opened the use of the 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 making the fabrics 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 honors McDonough Braungart’s Hannover Principles: “No. 9: Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge,” (The Hannover Principles, William McDonough Architects, 1992). To this end, Designtex believes that “leadership, not ownership” is important in today’s business environment.

“We licensed the use of Climatex Lifecycle to Carnegie three years ago,” Lyons said. “And we believed that in the spirit of environmental ‘co-opetition’ that it was time to offer it to the entire industry.”

“It had been seven years since we developed Climatex Lifecycle,” added Sonnenschein, “and 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.”

According to Sonnenschein, Rohner Textil was eager to open its manufacturing technologies to other companies because the mill’s methods are the “cleanest way to make fabric.”

“When we decided to open up the Climatex Lifecycle process, Rohner actually wrote a letter of invitation to all of the ACT members, inviting them to use the process,” said Sonnenschein. “They were really eager to share their technology.”

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 and has been designed to exceed the most stringent international flame codes. 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 make them more environmentally friendly. In addition to having more environmentally friendly components, the new fabrics will be designed for continual recycling into new fabric.

The Future Of Textiles

Interface Fabrics Group’s new family of Terratex textiles are bio-based, which means they are derived from annually renewable resources such as corn.

Textile manufacturers are constantly developing fabrics with higher environmental standards, working toward the goal of sustainable manufacturing. While working toward this goal, they are keeping in mind the flexibility designers want from textiles.

For example, IFG also introduced a new bio-based fabric at NeoCon this year. Bio-based refers to the production of synthetic fibers from organic, annually renewable resources.

“Bio-based fabrics represent a huge breakthrough in environmental design,” Bennotti said.

Bio-based fibers have many of the performance characteristics of synthetics, such as polyester, but they are derived from annually renewable resources, such as corn, rice or sugar beets. As plants pull carbon, in the form of CO2, from the air during photosynthesis, IFG harvests this carbon to create bio-based fibers. Through fermentation, distillation and polymerization, plant sugars can be converted into usable raw material for the fibers market. IFG reports that bio-based fibers require 20 to 50% fewer fossil fuels to produce than petroleum-based fibers, emit less CO2 during production and will be compostable in commercial facilities. These new bio-based textiles will be on the market in 2002.

In addition to introducing new designs and new environmentally friendly manufacturing methods, Goldman said he believes the textiles market will become more technical during the next five to 10 years.

“I predict there will be a lot of technical fabric for specific types of performance,” he said. “It will be less about ‘Is it pretty?’ and more about its functionality.”

Regardless of the changes that may affect the industry in the future, Bennotti said he thinks the future of the textiles industry definitely will be green.

“Over time, more and more bio-based products will replace oil-based products, and that’s good for everyone,” he said. “The LEED rating system will drive more and more products to be green and not just have recycled content.”