The fashion industry relies heavily on virgin fossil-fuel-based polymers, particularly synthetic polymers like PET (polyethene terephthalate), PA (polyamide), EVA (ethylene-vinyl acetate), and elastane. As of 2023, polyester alone accounted for 57% of total fibre production (Textile Exchange, Materials Market Report 2023), highlighting the industry’s reliance on virgin fossil-fuel-based materials despite the environmental concerns associated with their production.

Fossil-fuel-based polymers come at a significant environmental cost and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, environmental pollution, and biodiversity loss, fueling the global climate crisis. The pressing need to reduce this dependence on non-renewable resources has spurred a search for more sustainable alternatives.

One promising alternative solution is the adoption of innovative biosynthetic materials. Biosynthetics offer a powerful alternative to traditional synthetic fibres, bringing both performance and technical properties that have the potential to be drop-in replacements. At the same time these alternatives could significantly contribute to reducing the industry’s environmental impact, they still require extensive environmental and technical validation. 

Furthermore, many solutions are currently produced using 1st-generation feedstocks. These are raw materials that are directly derived from food crops or other biomass sources, potentially competing with food production — thus presenting additional challenges related to land use, scalability and ethical sourcing. The accurate assessment of these feedstocks’ impacts and the identification of alternatives remain major roadblocks in the path to scaling biosynthetic materials.