As fashion apparel retailers and their textiles partners struggle to meet sustainability goals, The LYCRA Company and Qore® (a joint venture between Cargill and HELM) have teamed up to bring to market a bio-derived LYCRA® fiber made with QIRA®. The fiber is derived from corn grown by farmers in the U.S. and is not only sustainable, but also meets consumer demands for performance, fit, comfort and stretch.
The fiber innovation was presented during a session at the WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit, titled “From Farm to Fashion: Helping to Make Fashion More Sustainable.” It included a discussion with Gary Smith, chief executive officer of The LYCRA Company, Jon Veldhouse, chief executive officer of Qore®, and Lauren Parker, director of Fairchild Studio, Fairchild Media Group as well as a brief video that explained the science behind the fiber.
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Smith said the new fiber traces its roots back to when the LYCRA® fiber was introduced in 1958. About 10 years ago, the company sought out non-petrochemical sources. “We were able to get inputs, but we weren’t able to get them at scale,” he said. “They were very expensive. And traceability was difficult. So it was expensive, and could not be at scale. And then roughly in 2018, one of our brand partners introduced us to Qore®.”
It was a perfect match.
Qore’s Veldhouse said the collaboration “is really an enablement for us to have an impact at scale and a meaningful impact,” adding that fashion apparel contributes about 10 percent to global greenhouse gases. He said the collaboration and attending the summit brings the innovation down the value chain, closer to the end user, “which allows us to see that meaningful impact come to fruition.”
Smith said and the new bio-derived LYCRA® fiber made with QIRA® is a key part of the company’s sustainability framework and said the fiber will have a big impact on the environment. “It will result in a 44 percent reduction in carbon emissions, and fossil fuel footprint,” he said, adding that at the heart of the innovation is “fractionation,” which is when field corn kernels are separated into multiple components that is used in various ways.
“That process breaks the corn down into its components, and then we use one of those components in the Qore® facility that’s being built as we speak to generate the input, the primary feedstock that we use to make LYCRA® fiber,” Smith said. “The primary feedstock that we use represents about 70 percent of the content of the LYCRA® fiber, and there are efforts underway to look at alternatives to the remaining additives [to get to 100 percent].”