Inditex is advancing in its sustainability strategy with a new agreement, valued at more than 100 million euros, whereby it undertakes to purchase 30% of the production volume of Infinna textile fiber, made by Infinited Fiber Company from textile waste, for three years.
«This purchase commitment is significant for Infinited Fiber’s plans to scale its recycling technology through its first factory with large industrial capacity, which will begin operations in 2024, from which date Inditex will begin to buy Infinna,» the Galician group explains.
The solution developed by Infinited Fiber Company involves converting materials with a high cellulose and cotton composition into this new fiber, registered as Infinna, which offers a look and feel similar to cotton. In addition, it can be recycled again along with other textile waste.
The project, with which Inditex seeks to reduce the use of virgin resources and take steps towards circularity, is part of the Sustinability Innovation Hub of the Spanish group, through which it collaborates with startups, institutions and academic centers to promote materials, technologies and processes that reduce the environmental footprint of its activity.
The agreement between the Galician company and the Infinited Fiber Company group has already materialized in a Zara capsule, launched on May 12 in its online store. The collection incorporates this fiber, made from garments provided by Caritas, with which the chain collaborates in its clothing collection program.
«We firmly believe that innovation is key to the competitive and circular future of the fashion industry, which is why we are actively working to find new solutions for sourcing new fibers from pre- and post-consumer textile waste,» said Javier Losada, sustainability director at Inditex.
«Inditex is one of the largest fashion retailers in the world and this agreement is a significant step towards realizing our ambition to make Infinna a major textile raw material in the future,» said Petri Alava, CEO and co-founder of Infinited Fiber Company.
Sustainability is one of the cornerstones of the Galician group’s strategic transformation, as Inditex’s then Chairman, Pablo Isla, underlined in July last year at the 2021 General Shareholders’ Meeting.
The company’s targets include net emissions by 2040, the use of 100% renewable energies by 2022; the total use of «more sustainable cotton» by 2023, a 25% reduction in water consumption in the supply chain by 2025 or the presence of the «Join Life» label (which groups items with «more sustainable processes and raw materials») on half of the garments by this year.