For Austria-based fiber firm Lenzing, 2022 marked a 30-year milestone of longstanding sustainable fiber innovation, significant industry partnerships, and the empowerment of the textile sector to progress toward true sustainability.
This year, the company looks back on a key point of pride – the transformation of flagship textile brand TENCEL™ into a redefined consumer-facing ingredient brand, boasting over 300 global brand partners including the likes of Levi’s, H&M, and J Crew. Over the years, TENCEL™, best known for its branded lyocell and modal fiber, has garnered the trust and confidence of Lenzing’s textile partners when it comes to enhancing the industry’s sustainability standard through fiber and technology offerings. The brand continues to be a priority for Lenzing as it makes good on its promise to facilitate full-scale sustainability for the textile industry.
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Celebrating 30 years of sustainable style, Lenzing’s “Feel Good Fibers Since 1992” campaign was rolled out to year-long success with co-branding activities and events serving to further advocate for change and empower brand partners and consumers on their sustainability journey. It was a celebration and tribute to the comfort, eco-friendliness, and fiber innovation for which the TENCEL™ brand has gained global recognition.
Here, Florian Heubrandner, vice president of global textiles business at Lenzing AG, and Harold Weghorst, global vice president of marketing & branding at Lenzing AG, talk to Fairchild Studios about the company’s impact on the fashion industry over the past decades and share what’s ahead.
Fairchild Studio: The TENCEL™ brand is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, how would you describe the brand’s journey so far in driving the fashion and textiles industry toward sustainability?
Harold Weghorst: Complex sustainability challenges, from textile waste to issues of greenwashing marketing, require industry collaboration across the board. In our three decades as a fiber producer growing into an increasingly front-facing player, TENCEL™ has nurtured a vast network of partners along the value chain and continues to work closely with each in understanding the needs and challenges the industry faces when it comes to driving sustainability. Having done so, I’m incredibly proud to say that the TENCEL™ brand has united the industry and set a standard for true sustainability.
Fairchild Studios: Why has it been so important to move through this journey alongside your partners? How would you describe these partnerships?
H.W.: We know that industry sustainability is an impossible task to progress alone. And likewise, as fiber producers, clear visibility into the challenges our value chain partners face is necessary for us to deliver impactful fiber solutions – it’s why our commitment to industry collaboration has been such a crucial pillar of Lenzing’s sustainability and business strategy.
To celebrate these integral partnerships, this year alone saw our continued and storied collaboration with RCGD Global for the 92nd Academy Awards and recent AVATAR: The Way of Water premiere, showcasing endless possibilities for eco-couture, alongside first-time collaborations with performance apparel innovator, Concept III’s David Parkes for a fabric collection truly geared for outdoors, and a partnership with fellow textile brand COREVA™ to create a novel cellulosic fiber for use in denim – and that’s just to name a few.
The TENCEL™ brand also continues to be strongly leveraged by our retail partners like H&M, Levi’s, Boyish, and Timberland as they build up their sustainability credentials with the help of trusted industry names.
Fairchild Studios: In terms of innovations, what have been the most impactful moments towards fueling Lenzing’s sustainability-driven goals and how do you hope to see innovations continue?
Florian Heubrandner: We are incredibly proud of the work that has gone into building and improving the Lenzing E-Branding Service platform, a one-stop solution for fabric certification, license agreements and co-branding activities devised for our value chain partners. Launched in 2018, the platform has been part of our four-pillar approach in progressing transparency and traceability for the textile industry, enabled by Lenzing’s Fiber Identification technology and enhanced further through collaboration with TextileGenesis™ to integrate blockchain technology with the Lenzing E-Branding fabric certification system.
Recently, new features and updates were rolled out on the E-Branding Service platform to improve user experience so our brand and retail partners can make use of our branding materials to communicate their sustainability credentials with more support and greater efficiency.
On the fiber innovation front, our TENCEL™ Modal fiber with Indigo Color technology recently took home the 2022 ITMF Award for Sustainability and Innovation. It is always encouraging to see our hard work being recognized in the industry.
Fairchild Studios: Where do you see the future of sustainable textiles headed in terms of demand?
F.H.: Looking forward, we anticipate the demand for specialty fibers to skyrocket and eclipse what we currently see in the market as a result of overwhelming consumer demand and rising awareness of sustainability.
A large focus area for Lenzing will be strengthening our production capabilities to achieve a higher capacity to serve the textiles market. Thus far, we’ve opened the plant in Thailand to expand our lyocell production output, becoming the world’s largest lyocell plant as well as sites in Austria and China. Our focus also looks beyond lyocell fiber offerings as we boost our capabilities in offering other specialty fibers such as TENCEL™ Modal fibers and LENZING™ ECOVERO™, our eco-responsibly produced alternative to conventional viscose.
Fairchild Studios: Anything you want to tell us about Lenzing’s sustainability goals for the future? What is Lenzing’s vision for the next 30 years as it continues to lead the textile industry on sustainability?
F.H.: Lenzing’s vision for a carbon-neutral future means we strive to reach net-zero CO2 emissions by 2050. This will be realized with several approaches, one being to half the number of emissions per ton of manufactured pulp and fiber by 2030 – using the year 2017 as a baseline – and to drive the decarbonization of our value chains, bolstering the use of carbon neutral fibers under our TENCEL™ brand will be a key focus area for us.
Carbon-zero TENCEL™ branded fibers have been third-party certified as carbon neutral and support actions against global warming in line with UN Sustainable Development Goals. We’re very excited to explore where the possibility of these fibers takes us, expanding beyond apparel to other textile goods. Already, we’ve seen how the fibers can be used for home textiles with the launch of the world’s first 100 percent carbon-zero TENCEL™ Lyocell carpet and rug collection with Jacaranda, a luxury carpet and rug brand from the U.K.
As we look beyond 30 years of TENCEL™, we continue to be on a journey to True Carbon Zero, reflected in the partnerships and joint industry initiatives we have in store for the next 30.
H.W.: We look forward to seeing an even wider adoption of TENCEL™ fibers across different textile segments, so consumers can have a greater selection of products that meet their sustainable lifestyle and strive towards a future that’s transparent and carbon neutral.