Lenzing is becoming a partner in the CISUTAC (Circular and Sustainable Textile and Clothing) project that is co-funded by the EU.

The 27 consortium members include the industry association Euratex, Inditex, PVH, Decathlon and Oxfam. For its part, Lenzing will focus on the development of recycling processes for cellulose fibres in line with its own corporate strategy.

The aim of the consortium is to prevent, identify and eliminate barriers to the circularity of the clothing chain. In recent years, Lenzing has set itself the target of actively promoting circularity, reducing the consumption of resources, avoiding environmental pollution and waste, increasing value creation and resource efficiency and mitigating the negative social impact on people.

“At Lenzing, we work hard on a daily basis to make our industry more sustainable and promote the transformation of the textile business from a linear to a circular model,” said CEO Stephan Sielaff. “I am delighted that as a champion of sustainability, we can also make a valuable contribution by participating in this project.”

“Effective textile recycling is one of the most important and complex core issues facing the textile industry in the years to come,” added Sonja Zak, head of Lenzing’s Circularity Initiative. “By pooling expertise and working with partners along the value chain we can accelerate this vital process and forge ahead with finding solutions.”

CISUTAC’s goal is to minimise the sector’s total environmental impact by developing sustainable, novel and inclusive large-scale European value chains.

Lenzing has been developing and promoting innovation in recycling for many years with solutions such as its Refibra and Eco Cycle technologies and in 2021 signed a cooperation agreement with the Swedish pulp producer Södra to further promote the issue. In the course of this collaboration, the two global market leaders will pool their knowledge and jointly develop new processes for recycling used textiles.

www.lenzing.com