Chemistry, Materials & Packaging
The latest developments in safe and sustainable chemicals, new materials, fuels, and more.
Apparel Brands Drive Circular Fashion Future with Recyclable, Renewable Fabrics
Pangaia and Filippa K are the latest to unveil collaborations with circular textile innovators — fueling progress toward closing the loop on fabric waste.
Algae May Be a ‘Brilliant’ Solution for Capturing Carbon at Gigaton Scale
By controlling and replicating natural processes, Brilliant Planet’s technology can permanently sequester CO2 from the air while also deacidifying the ocean.
Store Shelves of the Future: Packaging for a Circular Economy
Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. We recently gathered leaders from McKinsey, Unilever and Colgate-Palmolive to ponder what consumer products and their packaging will look like in 2035 and beyond.
Alaska’s Move to Eliminate Inflight Plastic Reveals Issues Within US Recycling Infrastructure
The airline quickly hit a roadblock in the unrecyclability of paper cups with an integrated plastic lining necessary for beverage service.
‘Clean Beauty’ Is Just a Pipe Dream If Sustainability Gets Left Behind
Every year, 3B trees are turned into paper packaging for the products we buy — including for many ‘clean’ beauty brands. These brands must take the same holistic approach to their packaging as their ingredients.
Tech Titans Embrace Responsible Forestry
While many companies focus sustainability efforts on their products and other consumer touch points, two of tech’s largest companies are including large facility construction and remodel projects as a foundation to their efforts having a ‘nature-positive’ approach.
2023 Design Trends: Balancing the Beautiful with the Responsible
The balance between luxury and sustainability has set a new bar for luxury packaging, making us all stop and think about how we can do things differently.
A Sustainable Future Requires Healthy Animals
The FAO estimates livestock emissions could fall by 30% through wider adoption of existing technologies and best practices in animal health and husbandry. Only by taking a holistic food-systems approach that includes sustainable livestock can we make meaningful progress toward Sustainable Development Goals around hunger, poverty and climate action.
Basecamp Research Helping Expand Global Access to Safe, Natural Chemicals and Proteins
With a goal of phasing out toxic and forever chemicals in consumer products, the UK-based biotech startup is spearheading the ethical, equitable discovery and utilization of the safe, effective chemicals and proteins waiting to be found in nature and developed for human use and benefit.
Modern Meadow Partners to Scale Sustainable Materials Development for Outdoor Apparel Market
The materials innovator and sustainable fabric giant Singtex are co-developing new biomaterials across a range of applications — starting with a sustainably produced, waterproof, membrane-based material for outdoor apparel.
Stella McCartney to Pilot Mixed-Textile Recycling Venture
Protein Evolution’s technology can turn unused polyester and nylon fabrics from Stella McCartney’s previous collections into good-as-new, infinitely recyclable fibers — and could present a new circular solution for the fashion industry.
Meet 2 Biomaterial Startups Cultivating a Circular, Climate-Friendlier Fashion Industry
Orange Fiber and Keel Labs are platforms for exploration and innovation that can reverberate across the fashion industry and prove that sustainable feedstocks and production processes can can create both financial and planetary prosperity.
6 Principles for Building a Pathway to Circularity for Plastics
Developing and optimizing a fully circular plastics value chain is a complex challenge that can’t be achieved with any single solution. We challenge our peers and other key stakeholders to be courageous and take risks, to explore new possibilities and partnerships, and persist until we have solutions.
Q&A: Why Partnerships Are Essential for Delivering Circular Packaging for the Food Industry
Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. While flexible packaging plays an important role in keeping food fresher longer, it has long been difficult to recycle. Designing more recyclable flexible packaging from the start and determining a better end-of-life process for current materials is a vital step in reducing food waste.
Brand Blind Spots, Empty Promises Hindering Effective Action Against Plastic Pollution
As seen in ongoing incidents of greenwashing and a new Greenpeace report, the onus is on consumer product manufacturers to take more comprehensive approaches to stemming their flow of plastic into the world — and turning the tide of public opinion.
Bridgestone Wins $35M USDA Climate-Smart Grant to Further Advance Guayule Natural Rubber Production
The USDA has awarded Bridgestone $35M to grow its investment in desert shrub guayule to advance a climate-smart domestic rubber industry and offer a water-smart solution amid the ongoing drought in the Southwestern US.
Tramontina Courts Circularity, First by Addressing Packaging Pain Points
The Brazilian cookware giant released its first comprehensive sustainability and environmental impact review, detailing its progress toward and ongoing pursuit of sustainability.
Corporate-University Partnerships Support the Next Generation in Creating a Circular Future
Cross-Posted from From Purpose to Action: Building a Sustainable Future Together. Recognizing the value of education both as a strategic initiative for preparing future brand employees and as an opportunity to help shape a more sustainable value chain.
New Menswear Brand Out to Remind Industry That Nature Is the Ultimate Luxury
Men’s apparel startup HyperNatural is aiming to subvert the industry’s reliance on synthetic materials with its unique fabric made from a blend of recycled and organic waste streams. While it’s still ironing out circularity kinks, the brand is determined to not make perfection the enemy of progress.
Stora Enso Says Circular Building Solution Could Eliminate 70% of Construction’s Climate Impacts
The Finnish biomaterials giant says shifting to wood as a building material can cut up to 70% of emissions per project and ensure that the construction industry is part of the solution to end global warming.
