Circularity call from Kingwhale president at COP28
The president of Taiwan-based yarn, fabric and garment producer Kingwhale, James Huang, travelled to Dubai for the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), which officially ended on December 12.
At the event he took part in a series called COP28 Leadership Interviews, organised by news organisation Reuters.
He said he believed a system called Revio was a good example of increased attention that the performance textiles sector is paying to the circular economy now.
Kingwhale has described Revio as “revived polyester”. It derives from textile waste and can bring about what the company has called a new business model for keeping products in use for longer.
“Our investment in Revio involves taking post-consumer and post-industrial waste, putting it through a chemical process and turning it into new material,” Mr Huang said at COP28. “This resolves several issues.”
He said Revio will reduce use of the petrochemicals that go into virgin fibres and, thereby, reduce the textile industry’s impact on the environment. It will also mean less textile material being incinerated or going to landfill.
“We are looking at a closed-loop circular system,” he said. “That’s what we are trying to create.”
