More than half of H&M’s polyester will be ‘circular’ in seven years
Fashion group H&M has formally entered into a “take-or-pay offtake agreement” with its new textile-to-textile recycling company Syre. It has committed to an investment of $600 million over seven years in the new company’s ‘circular polyester’.
Its estimate is that this will cover more than half of the group’s own polyester consumption in the course of those seven years.
According to Syre’s calculations, the projected annual capacity of 3 million tonnes of circular polyester per year would be a 3% share of total global polyester consumption, at current rates. This would be enough to make 16 billion T-shirts.
It has worked out that the saving in carbon emissions from using circular polyester for these garments instead of conventional polyester will be the equivalent of taking 3 million petrol-engine cars off the road. “This is a decent share in the short term,” Syre told sportstextiles at the time of its launch, “but it is still just the beginning.”
