H&M to launch recycled-polyester initiative in latest sustainability bid
H&M is forming a joint venture with Vargas Holding to reduce textile waste through large-scale polyester recycling plants
Clothing giant H&M is forming a joint venture to deal with the carbon emissions from fast fashion’s use of polyester.
The venture, called Syre, is set to cover more than half of H&M’s long-term need of recycled polyester, the company said in a statement this month. Partnering in the project are Vargas Holding AB, an investor behind battery maker Northvolt AB, and asset manager TPG.
Within a decade, Syre is planning to have twelve industrial scale plants up and running at full speed and capacity worldwide, producing more than three million metric tons of circular polyester, sourced from used textiles. The venture is supported by a binding offtake supply agreement with H&M, worth $600 million (€553.4 million) over seven years.
“Syre marks the start of the great textile shift,” Dennis Nobelius, the company’s chief executive officer, said in an interview. He joined the start-up from luxury electric vehicle maker Polestar, where he was chief operating officer. “By implementing true textile-to-textile recycling at hyperscale, we want to drive the transition from a linear to a circular value chain by putting textile waste to use, over and over again.”
The news follows the February bankruptcy filing of another H&M affiliate, Renewcell AB, as H&M said it wouldn’t provide more funding for the company. The producer of circulose — a trademarked pulp it made from recycled cotton — had warned that retailers’ slow demand had been putting a serious strain on its business.
Syre is “an important next step” for H&M to “integrate circularity” Daniel Erver, H&M’s chief executive officer said in the statement. The solution allows scaling textile-to-textile recycling rapidly, he said.
The Swedish retailer has pledged to ensure that by 2025, 30 per cent of the materials it uses will have been recycled. Its main rival, Zara-owner Inditex, said in October it had agreed to buy recycled polyester from US startup Ambercycle Inc, as it aims for at least a quarter of its fabrics to be made with“next-generation” fibres by 2030.
Syre is building its first production plant in North Carolina, due to start operations later this year. Over time, the Stockholm-headquartered business expects to employ “a couple thousand” staff across Europe, Asia and the Americas, Nobelius said.
Today less than one per cent of the global textile fibre market comes from recycled textiles and the textile industry accounts for up to 10 per cent of global CO2 emissions, the company said.
Syre’s name means oxygen in Swedish, and combines the words sy — Swedish for sewing — and re, the Latin denominator for something happening over and over again.
