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"You're dealing with the waste industry, the pulp industry and the fiber industry– all very conservative industries– and you're trying to get them onboard." Stacy Flynn, CEO and founding partner, Evrnu SUSTAINABILITY SCALES UP emissions by 40 percent, and emis- sions of toxic gases such as sulfur dioxide to zero. Notable, too, is that the new on-site cogeneration plant will also serve other businesses in the area, too. The company, supplier of pre- mium Nylon 6.6, has launched a new dope-dyed nylon product called WaterCare, another step in advanc- ing its Total Product Sustainability (TPS) program designed to provide the apparel market with more eco- friendly products. According to Aran, the company also looks to bring a Wellbeing product to market that features bio-active attributes. There is progress on a biodegrad- able product and a new traceability platform is also in the works. Making Sustainability Tangible "Everybody hears about sustain- ability, recycling, and lowering water consumption, but we want to make it real, and in a way that customers and consumers can understand," explains Unifi's marketing director Cheryl Czukowski. "Even with life- cycle data, we try to translate the raw numbers and to speak in terms that people understand." To put Unifi's recent recycling milestone of 20 billion plastic bot- tles into context, the achievement was portrayed in way that clearly illustrated scale. For example that 20 billion single-serve plastic bottles can "physically circle the earth approx- imately 100 times or fill the Empire State building more than 13 times." Hallmarking Repreve's relevancy has been the marketing strategy from the get go. "Repreve started with two brand (partners) in 2008 and is now upwards of 900 globally," Czukowski shares. "Mills under- stand that Repreve resonates with consumers and that adds value to brands' product." The pandemic, however, threw a curveball in Unifi's 2020 marketing campaign. "The Repreve mobile tour bus was all spiffed up for a maiden voyage in March, heading to Nevada for a basketball tourna- ment, when we had to call it back from Oklahoma," recalls Czukowski. Repreve sponsors TeamGreen, a Pac-12 collegiate program, and the Repreve bus served as an ideal marketing vehicle, literally, built around in-person physical contact with Repreve fabric. How to tell the Repreve story virtually intensified. Czukowski points out two examples of cur- rent marketing efforts: a video on the Repreve website that offers a step-by-step visual explanation of the entire Unifi process; and the Repreve Our Ocean, a premium collection of fiber and resin sourced from bottles at high risk of entering the ocean. "Everybody is talking about the increasing problem of ocean plastics; it is a problem we all can relate to, and Unifi offers a solution." Visualizing Eco-Friendly The pandemic has absolutely heightened consumer awareness and interest in more sustainable textile treatments, according to Lisa Owen with Life Materials Technologies' brand Life Natural. This was confirmed in a recent study conducted by the firm in which 65 percent of U.S. consumers (who do the shopping at big box retailers) responded that they would prefer an odor control treatment based on peppermint oil like Life Natural to either silver or synthetic organic odor control chemistries. This "golden nugget" of insight, along with more insights gleaned from the proprietary survey about aspects of antimicrobials consumers value, will help shape Life Naturals consumer messaging and differen- tiate the company's peppermint oil technology in today's odor control market space, according to Owen. A new Life Naturals video posted on the brands LinkedIn page rein- forces the company's message of peppermint oil chemistry as a "do no harm" technology. Without using words the video visually tells the Power of Peppermint. A new Life Natural website is slated to launch soon with mar- keting directed at both consumers and customers. "We emphasize that our product comes from plants, is grown and harvested naturally, and is durably used in textiles," states Owen, who adds, "We want to con- vert people from conventional tech, to tech of the future." Moving the Eco Needle At DuPont Biomaterials, supplier of Sorona brand products, market- ing acceleration during the months of Covid has run the course from introducing a new streamlined brand architecture to leveling up webinar participation to dipping a corporate toe into the virtual trade show scene. In addition, Sorona is now onboard with SynZenBe, an online virtual showroom, where Sorona sponsors 10 fabric mills. SynZenBe is described as the first end-to-end, transactional market- place for textile sourcing, based in the U.S., the e-commerce business offers premium fabric from around the globe. But from an engagement point of view with brands and mills, Sorona is just as busy as pre-pan- demic, according to Renee Henze, global marketing & commercial development director, DuPont Biomaterials. "There's no slow down in that. Brands are reach- ing out as they re-assess their sustainability business and that is translating into inquiries. Now we'll see if this translates to consumers." The challenge going forward for suppliers is making sustainability accessible to all, both in terms messaging and manufacturing. Henze believes that the pandemic experience will likely result in more and better digital tools used by industry suppliers. But right now the jury is still out on the true value of virtual. "Making quantities large enough so products are affordable has a big impact," says Henze. But it takes big time investment, in the tens of million of dollars range, to bring a new fiber to the world of materials. "To go from zero to new means research, lab scale, pilot facility, etc.," explains Henze, who is well aware of the money and time required to launch a successful product like Sorona. "You do all the tech, and then go to the next step and scale it, you might need to build a plant, which could be upwards of $300 million." Henze adds, "It's about making 10 million garments not 10 gar- ments to move the needle from a sustainability standpoint." l 44 • November 2020 sportstyle • sportstylemag.com

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