Among other global brands, BESTSELLER partners a Fashion for Good facilitated consortium to prototype Kintra Fiber's materials in their product lines, driven by a shared goal to explore innovative materials and processes.

''Given the significant environmental impact of traditional polyester and the expected growth of the synthetic fibre market, there is a clear need for the industry to change.”
- Camilla Skjønning Jørgensen, Innovation Manager at BESTSELLER.

Kintra Fibers has estimated its environmental impact by comparing its raw materials and resin production processes to traditional polyester. The company already found that its resin production results in a 95% reduction in GHG emissions, a 30% reduction in water usage, and a 20% reduction in energy consumption - and expects even greater energy savings when it completes a full life cycle assessment.

Additionally, Kintra Fibers is part of BESTSELLER's Invest FWD portfolio of investments that aim to generate change in the fashion industry.

''Kintra Fibers fits our Invest FWD strategy where we continuously investigate alternative fibres for long-term viability, and we are excited to be among the brands taking action to help Kintra Fibers scale its promising solution.''

The Dyestuff Library will accelerate the shift from harmful chemistry to alternative options by enabling visibility and access to innovations. It is a digital tool that enables partners to choose dyestuff based on competitive performance as well as environmental metrics for commercial use.

Over the course of a year, 15 selected dyestuff innovations will participate in lab and pilot trials. Innovators will go through extensive compliance and toxicity testing to ensure they are safe for commercial use.

''We need dyeing innovation that focuses on less wasteful practices, reduces water usage and is less energy consuming. To reach this, it is essential that the fashion industry supports initiatives with an upscaling perspective so new solutions can reach a commercial level – making BESTSELLER very excited about this project. The Dyestuff Library is exactly that kind of initiative and collaboration between brands, suppliers and dyestuff innovators.''
- Camilla Skjønning Jørgensen, BESTSELLER’s Innovation Manager.

In collaboration with innovator Biophilica, BESTSELLER aims to test and validate the leather alternative Treekind® as a replacement for conventional footwear materials. Treekind® is a non-petrochemical, low-resource, and compostable material, made with leaves.

The aim of the Fashion for Good pilot is to jointly create sample products together with BESTSELLER brand JACK & JONES to validate the use of Treekind® in specific product applications. The pilot includes iterative product prototyping and real-time feedback enabling Biophilica to continue to refine its material for footwear applications, which have some of the highest performance standards.

BESTSELLER will continue working with Biophilica to jointly create additional material and product samples with the aim of creating a concept collection to validate next steps to scale. 

The pilot aims to validate and scale black pigments derived from waste feedstocks such as industrial carbon, algae and wood that could replace synthetic dyes offering a more sustainable means of textile production with a lower carbon impact.

The colour black has a long history in the fashion industry and is one of the most commonly used colours to dye apparel. Modern synthetic dyes are often derived from petro-chemical compounds, which are non-renewable and contribute to water pollution when not treated correctly.

This project aims to develop and scale black pigment for the dope dyeing of man-made cellulosics (MMCs) fibres and recycled polyester (rPet) yarns, evaluating the technologies of the participating innovators.

Fashion for Good launched the Black Pigment Pilot project together with partners BESTSELLER, Birla Cellulose, Kering and PVH Corp., in collaboration with Paradise Textiles, and innovators Graviky Labs, Living Ink and Nature Coatings.

This project brings together a pioneering consortium to accelerate the development of Polyhydroxyalkanoates or PHA polymer fibres; a promising biosynthetic alternative to fossil fuel-based fibres such as polyester with the potential to reduce carbon emissions in the fashion supply chain.

Key industry players are brought together to investigate, test and validate the solutions provided by innovators in the PHA polymer space. With catalytic funding provided by Laudes Foundation, collaborating partners include BESTSELLER, Norrøna, PVH Corp. and the Fabrics Division of W. L. Gore & Associates providing industry expertise and financial support.

Participating innovators Bio Craft Innovation, Full Cycle Bioplastics and Newlight Technologies contribute their solutions to validate their potential, providing insights to scale the industry in the long term.

The project was launched with the ambition to validate and scale promising technologies in polyester chemical recycling and to encourage financing and offtake commitments in the fashion industry.

Polyester claims 52% of the global fibre market. As the most common fibre in the world, it also represents a significant portion of the 73% of textiles that are landfilled or incinerated annually. As a synthetic fibre derived from petroleum, polyester does not naturally break down in the environment, and the production of virgin fibres also perpetuates our reliance on fossil fuels. Chemical recycling is a key solution that promises to address the polyester textile waste challenge.

''Chemical recycling can make fibre-to-fibre recycling a reality and this is a critical step towards reaching our ultimate ambition. By limiting the use of virgin materials, recycled polyester will dramatically lower the environmental impact of polyester at the same time as we reduce our reliance on virgin petroleum as a raw material.''
– Camilla Skjønning Jørgensen, Innovation Manager, BESTSELLER.

''With BESTSELLER’s ultimate ambition of becoming climate positive, fair for all, and circular by design, this project encapsulates all aspects. Converting agricultural waste into fibres can help us – as an industry – to refrain from using finite resources. It can help build a more sustainable and renewable feedstock system by reducing the environmental impact, land and water use.''
- Camilla Skjønning Jørgensen, Innovation Manager, BESTSELLER.

The ‘Untapped Agricultural Waste Project’ was launched to validate and scale technologies that can successfully transform agricultural waste into more sustainable textile fibres. With catalytic funding provided by Laudes Foundation, Fashion for Good partners adidas, BESTSELLER, Vivobarefoot and Birla Cellulose, and six innovators, the consortium project will assess the technical feasibility of natural fibres created by the selected innovators using agricultural waste such as rice husks, hemp, wheat straw, banana and pineapple. The first phase of the project concludes in December 2022.

To further drive supply chain adoption and move beyond lab scale, the next phase of the project will pilot the agri-waste fibres from selected innovators in collaboration with partner brands and supply chain players in commercial facilities to produce larger quantities. This next phase ultimately aims to further enable brand offtake agreements and financing to facilitate scaling.

Mycelium technology company Ecovative announced the launch of an international fashion cooperative, with global brands BESTSELLER and PVH Corp. as founding members. Through the cooperative, these brands will have priority access to Ecovative’s mycelium innovations through its Forager™ Hides platform. Fashion for Good was integral in bringing these parties together to advance a petroleum-free vegan leather.

''Mycelium shows great potential in the fashion innovation sphere – it even extends far beyond our own industry. We are keen on diving into the product development phase and really understanding the aesthetics and actual performance of Ecovative’s innovative materials in the lab. This pilot enables us to gain more insight into mycelium as a leather alternative, which ultimately is both biodegradable and fully bio-based.''
- Anders Schorling Overgård, Sustainable Materials Engineer, BESTSELLER

The Viscose Traceability Project was launched to pilot a solution that verifies sustainable viscose fibres along the fashion supply chain. Developed in collaboration with BESTSELLER and Kering, the project applied the innovative blockchain technology from TextileGenesis™ (a Fashion for Good Innovator) to trace the viscose in the textile supply chain spanning eight countries.

The project’s ambitions were to explore, in detail, the necessary next-steps to making a traceability solution effective and scalable on a sector-wide, commercial level.

After the pilot, BESTSELLER decided to continue the collaboration with innovator TextileGenesis’ blockchain tracing solution and is currently tracing 25 million garments in a remarkable step towards product traceability.

The Sorting for Circularity Europe Project was initiated to address the knowledge gap on the infrastructure on textile waste collecting, exploring post-consumer textiles in depth, providing meaningful information on which to base investment decisions, policy developments and next steps towards circularity.

Furthermore, the project aimed to increase harmonisation between the sorting and recycling industry, stimulating a recycling market for unwanted textiles that can generate new revenue streams for sorters and unlock demand for recyclers and brands.