Woolroom has joined the British Wool traceable wool scheme. Woolroom is an online retailer of wool products for the sleep environment. Woolroom specialises in wool bedding, mattresses and accessories. The wool is locally sourced and sustainable. As a business, Woolroom has a multi-channel approach with three UK retail shops, a growing business-to business operation and a very fast-growing online presence in both the UK and North America.

British Wool is owned by approximately 35,000 sheep farmers in the UK. It collects, grades, sells and promotes British Wool to the international wool textile industry for use in flooring, furnishings and apparel. It is the largest supplier of British wool and goes into great detail when grading the wool.

Woolroom pays a premium over and above the British Wool auction price for the wool they procure. This is in turn returned to the relevant farmers. Woolroom is committed to supporting the British farmer. Not only does it connect consumers with the farmer through its Wool ID branding and innovative QR codes on the finished products, it is also helping to ensure the farmer receives a premium payment for their wool. Woolroom has partnered with British Wool’s traceable wool program, Wool ID, in Woolroom’s mattress and bedding ranges.

Sweden-based ACG Kinna has acquired Finland’s textile machinery maker Nowo. This brings together two leaders in automated textile technology. Fully integrated production lines from single source suppliers have increasingly become the norm in the textile industry and make complete sense in meeting today’s complex supply chain needs, says TMAS, the Swedish Textile Machinery Association. Over the past few decades, textile mills have transitioned from consisting of collections of individual machines serviced and maintained largely by in-house mechanics as well as separate supplier companies for each part of the production line. The introduction of electronic drive systems put an increased emphasis on the need for third party electrical engineers, operating separately to the machine builders. In this context, the integration of machinery and automation specialists as single-source suppliers makes perfect sense, while partnerships between machine builders and their customers have never been more important.

ACG Kinna, based in Sweden, specialises in customised and cost-efficient solutions for the production of pillows and quilts. Nowo, based in Finland, designs, manufactures and exports high-end textile production machinery mainly for the fiber processing industry. Nowo’s machine range covers the entire production process from bale opening to weighing and filling, and complete production lines are tailored to the specific needs of customers. The company can also deliver individual machines such as bale openers, cards, cross-lappers, pickers, mixing devices, material silos, sucking devices, anti-static units etc.

Patagonia has purchased nearly 30,000 meters of khadi denim fabric from Arvind Mills. The US-based fashion brand will use the fabric to make apparels. Patagonia carried out a strict assessment of various aspects of manufacturing khadi denim such as spinning, weaving, carding, dyeing, wage payments, age verification of workers etc, at a khadi making institution through a global third-party assessor before placing the order.

Arvind Mills has an agreement with the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) to promote khadi denim products around the world. Arvind Mills periodically purchases a large quantity of khadi denim fabric from KVIC-certified khadi institutions and supplies it to apparel brands.

Khadi denim is being promoted in India. The collection has a smooth texture and is a little softer than regular denim, is eco-friendly and skin-friendly, boasts of an array of jackets, jeans and shirts for men and women. Khadi denim is a handcrafted denim fabric which has gained wide popularity in the country and abroad. Khadi denim is increasingly being used by leading fashion brands owing to the superior quality, comfort, organic and eco-friendly qualities of the fabric. KVIC is an apex organization under the ministry of micro, small and medium enterprises. Be it design or fashion, it’s trying to present a new and refurbished image of khadi.

Nandan Terry’s revenues from operations for the fiscal year 2021 rose 25 per cent compared to fiscal 2020 primarily due to an increase in sales of cotton yarn, towel and toweling products. The company has filed preliminary documents with markets regulator Sebi to raise Rs 255 crores through an initial public offering (IPO).

The proceeds of the public issue will be used for payment of debt, for funding working capital requirements and general corporate proposes. The company may consider raising Rs 40 crores through a pre-IPO placement. If the pre-IPO round is undertaken, the issue size will be reduced.

Nandan Terry based in Ahmedabad and part of the Chiripal Group is a fully vertically integrated company engaged in manufacturing terry towels and toweling products and also sells the cotton yarn manufactured at its units to achieve better sales realisations. It has the latest technology machines right from spinning to processing and can produce 25 million towel pieces per annum. Chiripal is a professionally managed business entity. Starting with a few power looms, it has evolved into a multi-activity, multi-product textile house that produces fiber to apparel under one roof. It has business in the fields of petrochemicals, spinning, weaving, knitting, fabric processing and chemicals.

US-based Parkdale Mills, one of the largest manufacturers of spun yarn and cotton consumer products in the world, will make a multimillion-dollar investment in a new yarn spinning facility in Honduras and make an additional substantial investment to support existing operations in Virginia. This investment will help customers shift a million pounds of yarn per week away from supply chains in Asia and China and enhance US and CAFTA-DR (Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement) co-production resilience and increase regional product offerings. Parkdale will create hundreds of jobs in Honduras and further support hundreds of employees in Parkdale’s Virginia operations. Parkdale sees an enormous opportunity for brands and retailers to re-shore and nearshore production supply chains and double the size of US-CAFTA-DR trade.

The textile and apparel co-production chain is one of the most essential supply chains for employment and economic development in both the United States and the Northern Triangle region, currently supporting over a million jobs in the United States and the Central American region. The Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement and its strong rules of origin are the primary reasons this co-production chain exists and is seeing significant growth this year. Rules of origin in nearshoring production chains help address labor and environmental challenges and mitigate supply chain risk.

Belgian researchers have revealed the concept for a fabric that can keep a person warm when worn one way and cool them down when worn the other way. Until now, most cooling fabrics have been made up of impermeable membranes that trap air and moisture against the skin, making them uncomfortable to wear. The team used the enhanced capabilities of photonic tailored textiles to solve this problem. They integrated infrared-emitting and absorbing components into mechanically flexible fabrics.

The Janus cloth with a thickness of 20 meters is named after the two-faced Roman god Janus. The material’s two interlaced sides are made up of two different types of fibers: dielectric and metallic, with highly differing infrared-emitting capabilities. On the one hand, dielectric fibers can release a considerable amount of radiation, but metallic fibers have a low emissivity. Janus textile is thin and flexible, in addition to its passive heating and cooling qualities. Moisture travels away from the body through gaps between the threads, assuring the wearer of comfort. For the time being, though, high manufacturing costs may prevent such reversible materials from appearing in clothing anytime soon. Large-scale production of the material is not currently practical but the findings can spur more study into comparable materials.

Business, trade unions and NGOs have started negotiations on a new agreement to further human rights, international labor rights, the environment and animal welfare in the Dutch garment and textile sector. They are jointly seeking to drive leadership on responsible business conduct aligned with the OECD Guidelines and the UNGPs on business and human rights. The Social and Economic Council of the Netherlands (SER) facilitates the process. They want to help companies implement the due diligence guidelines and facilitate companies from a garment sector perspective based on upcoming legal requirements. The EU will come with a legislative proposal in 2022, and also the Dutch government has committed to drafting due diligence legislation.

The agreement is being designed by the parties to be impactful. The approach focuses on clear, individual and shared commitments to drive collective goals. This gives the sector a common point of reference on how impact can be achieved on known risks in the sector. The agreement aims to set the most impactful goals in the sector. The initial focus is on the national and international players active in the Dutch market, but the process is also open to organisations active in other European countries. It is expected that the new agreement will see the light in the course of early 2022, depending on the commitment of the Dutch government and the integration in the extended producer responsibility system of the sector, among others.

The textile and apparel industry in Ethiopia has exceeded its target export earnings over the past five months. In particular the leather industry performed spectacularly and the plan is to earn $90 million from leather exports this year. The sector is seen having immense opportunity to support the overall economy of the country with an improved functioning.

Some 80 of the over 400 textile and apparel industries in the country export textile products. Work is now on to resolve the challenges being raised by the textile and leather industries, including the availability of foreign currency, input raw materials and spare parts. The textile and apparel sector is one of Ethiopia’s key industrial sectors.

Foreign currency earnings are given priority as a way of offsetting the current shortage in hard currency. To effect proper market linkages with reliable buyers, market opportunities are being explored to obtain potential buyers in the global market. A 15-year National Cotton Development Strategy has been prepared to tackle the cotton shortage. Ethiopia is going to harvest a huge amount of cotton for export and to satisfy the demands of the local textile industry. Several major foreign companies have invested in the textile and clothing industry in Ethiopia.

China’s garment and textile exports rose five per cent from January 2021 to October 2021 reveals Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). In the same period, exports of clothing products surged 25 per cent. The combined operating revenue of major textile enterprises rose 14.2 per cent. Profits rose 29 per cent over one year earlier. China’s online retail sales of clothing products grew 14.1 per cent in the January to October period, hitting a three per cent average growth over the past two years.

Over two years China's technical textiles industry has grown by 12 per cent. From January to September 2021 production of nonwovens and cord fabric was down 1.01 per cent and up 29 per cent respectively. The operating income of enterprises in the technical textile industry decreased by 14.74 per cent with an average increase of 10.78 per cent in the past two years. Their total profit dropped by 63.78 per cent year on year, seeing an average increase of 14.12 per cent in the past two years. The operating profit margin reached 5.25 per cent, seeing a year-on-year decrease of 7.11 percentage points. The operating income of 31 listed companies in the third quarter fell by 1.15 per cent and their total profits declined by 33.59 per cent.

Fast Retailing aims at carbon neutrality by 2050. Efforts to do so include reducing its carbon emissions by 20 per cent in 2030. Since 2017, Fast Retailing has published a list of core sewing partner factories and since 2018 has expanded the list to include core fabric mills. By March 2022, the company plans to publish a list of all sewing partner factories it has ongoing dealings with. In addition to audits at garment factories and core fabric mills, the company aims to establish traceability across the whole supply chain, from upstream spinning mills to raw material level. The company will identify and correct any human rights or labor environment issues at an early stage. This also includes a gender equity-based policy, including an increase in the representation of female management in the company to 50 per cent by 2030, hiring people with disabilities, and enhancing LGBTQ friendliness of environments for both employees and customers.

Fast Retailing is the company behind the brand Uniqlo. All 64 Uniqlo stores from nine markets in Europe have switched over to renewable energy. By the end of 2021, all stores in North America and in some countries in southeast Asia will complete this switch.