According to a report published by the organization Textile Exchange, the fashion and textile industry needs to move away from using virgin fossil fuels as a feedstock for materials in order to meet the greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets currently associated with synthetic fibers.
Climate change has been connected to the dominance of synthetic materials in global fiber production since the mid-1990s, according to Textile Exchange’s most current report, The Future of Synthetics.
The analysis showed that the largest contribution of any fiber to greenhouse gas emissions in 2022 was 47 million tonnes of polyester fiber, which was predicted to produce 125 million tonnes of CO2e.
The goal of the paper is to help the fashion and textile sectors move away from virgin synthetic materials by using “preferred solutions such as textile-to-textile recycling, biosynthetics, and carbon capture.”
However, the study also made clear that a whole shift from synthetic materials to land-based basic materials might lead to an over-reliance on natural ecosystems and their degradation, particularly at current production rates.
The study suggests that the fashion and textile industries should instead find applications for the leftover synthetic textiles while also considering the energy and emissions involved in their production.
According to Textile Exchange, there are two ways to address these issues: reducing the overall quantity of new materials produced, and identifying and financing alternative ways to produce synthetic materials from renewable feedstocks that are recycled or sustainably sourced.
