The Relationships of Fashion Brands & Sustainability Start-Ups

Whilst the topic of sustainability across all industries has been exponentially increasing over the past few years, so has the number of partnerships between sustainable start-ups and large corporations. As one of the most polluting industries, the fashion world has been experiencing a turnaround, resulting in a variety of multiple investments, such as the following;

The H&M Group

As one of the leading pioneers in fashion to direct efforts into sustainability, the H&M Group launched H&M Co:Lab in 2015, and first invested in Renewcell in 2017. Shortly after Renewcell listed in Sweden recently, the H&M Group announced their plan to further invest about $9.3 million in the company. Renewcell’s technology transforms old clothes made of natural textiles into materials that can be re-spun into new garments, a blossoming trend for sustainable innovations by fashion brands.

In general, the sustainability investments of the H&M Group lean strongly towards recycling technologies, which perfectly aligns to their ambition of becoming completely circular. This implies that the entire garment lifecycle will be completely overhauled from the beginning to end, from recycled and sustainable raw materials to environmentally friendly processes to prolonging the life through resale and rental prior to being up- or recycled.

Kering

On the other end of fashion, luxury conglomerate Kering, has gained a reputable track record of investing in and working with over 100 sustainable start-ups, ranging from minority investments to pilot project partnering, and from extremely early to advanced stages. These include material recycler Worn Again, as well as Mylo, one gaining popularity with many.

Having committed itself to considerably diminish its environmental footprint over the next five years, Kering has also spearheaded the Fashion Pact, an initiative that unites about a third of the fashion industry around a progression of determined sustainability objectives.

Natural Fiber Welding

Natural Fiber Welding, who focuses on material science including improving the quality of recycled cotton, has recently been invested in by Ralph Lauren. This coincides with the American brand’s target to source all of its highest volume material, namely cotton, from more sustainable sources by 2025. Cotton itself as a material, is not only connected to a handful of sustainability issues on an environmental level, yet also often a social one. However oftentimes the recycled versions cannot compete in terms of quality, which is where Natural Fiber Welding’s technology comes in and solves this challenge.

Mylo

Mylo, a leather alternative derived from mushrooms and developed by the biotechnology company Bolt Threads, is the rising star amongst sustainable start-ups, having received funding by Kering, Adidas and Stella McCartney, as well as most recently Lululemon.

MycoWorks

Mylo’s rival MycoWorks recently participated in a Series B funding round scoring over $45 million through several major, yet unnamed fashion brands.

Evolved

Since June 2019, Chanel has taken a minority stake in Evolved by Nature, a silk-based performance textile maker that has been rediscovering the various molecules of silk proteins, as the luxury brand aims to reduce the need of synthetic chemicals and reduce their environmental footprint.

These are of course not the only partnerships which have blossomed through the increased popularity of sustainability, yet are the ones currently gaining the most traction. As even with adequate monetary funding magic doesn’t just happen, the new materials and technologies take time to be developed and need the ongoing support and especially interest of fashion brands to grow through market appetite, therefore attracting more partnerships. In any case, there are still critical boundaries that need to be broken to really create an industry change.