Ready-to-scale fibre options are thin on the ground, Spinnova says
Finnish renewable fibre developer Spinnova has said the textile market urgently needs access to natural, sustainable fibres and that the products it can supply using wood-based raw materials are among the few options that are “ready to scale”.
In its most recent annual report, published in mid-April, Spinnova quoted figures from Textile Exchange that put the global textile fibre market at 116 million tonnes in 2022, up from 112 million tonnes in 2021.
It said that over the last two decades, global fibre production has almost doubled from 58 million tonnes in 2000 and is expected to grow to 147 million tonnes in 2030 if business as usual continues.
It argued that natural fibres command one-third of the market at the moment, but that production growth for the most common natural fibre, cotton, is stagnating and that supply “is struggling to keep up with the demand”.
There is a lack of sustainable alternatives that are available at scale, Spinnova said. It added: “The majority of sustainable fibre innovations are still in pilot phase and are, for example, dependent on textile recycling in large scale to mature.”
