Lululemon Athletica, in collaboration with LanzaTech, has created the world’s first yarn and fabric using recycled carbon emissions that would otherwise be emitted to the atmosphere as pollution. The biotech company has innovated a process to produce ethanol from waste carbon sources. It is working with India Glycols Limited (IGL) and Taiwan’s Far Eastern New Century (FENC) to convert the ethanol to polyester.
LanzaTech’s process sources carbon from different feedstocks, from industrial emissions to syngas from gasified agricultural or household waste (including textile waste) and atmospheric CO2.
LanzaTech’s unique microorganisms ferment the gas stream into ethanol or other chemicals. The process is like traditional fermentation, except instead of sugars and yeast, it uses the carbon contained in waste gases and microorganisms.
The process of capturing and recycling carbon before it is released into the atmosphere is an innovation that LanzaTech has already brought to airlines and home care companies, and now textile production.
Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of LanzaTech, said, “We must radically change how we source, utilize and dispose of carbon.
Carbon recycling enables companies like lululemon to continue to move away from virgin fossil resources, bring circularity to their products, and achieve their climate change goals around carbon reduction. We call this being carbon smart.”
