Meet The Startup Tackling The $22 Billion Super Pollutant – Nylon
Vintage illustration of the legs of a woman modelling sheer nylons; screen print, 1954. (Photo by … [+] GraphicaArtis/Getty Images)
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Nylon – more than 8.7 million tons are produced each year. It’s a cheap, fossil-fuel based product and the second most used synthetic fibre.
Fast fashion is one of the biggest culprits for nylon use, with nearly 100 billion new garments produced annually. It’s a cheap resource, it’s easy to use, it’s fast to produce, – but this kind of cheap, fast, and easy is leaving nature with consequences that are expensive, devastating, and nearly impossible to solve.
Lisa Kennedy, Sr. Director Business Development at Geno, explains a little-known fact about nylon production: “nylon has been derived from non-renewable sources like fossil fuels, this conventional production process is a major contributor of nitrous oxide emissions — a greenhouse gas that’s about 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.”
Nitrous oxide is a super pollutant that absorbs radiation and traps heat in the atmosphere, it also depletes the ozone layer.
And the poisonous impact of synthetic microfibres has been well-documented: a 6 kilogram wash load can release more than 700,000 microfibres. These microfibres infiltrate everything, from humans and animals to oceans, lakes, and even the air. They quite literally are poisoning the food chain – killing animals and making humans sick.
In a study that gathered samples from shorelines across 18 sites across six continents from the poles to the equator, microfibres were found to be responsible for 85% of shoreline pollution.
Every layer of our ecosystem and every part of the food chain and circle of life is impacted by microfibres – this makes nylon a pandora’s box – once opened, it’s impossible to put the damage back in the box.
But despite the SOS calls from ecosystems, activists, scientists, dying animals, and even consumers – there’s been little genuine action from governments and businesses to tackle the devastating problem at its source. Consumer demand for sustainable products is growing, but recycled nylon accounts for only 2% of the market – and less than half of one percent of nylon is bio-based.
Fossil fuel based nylon is a $22 billion global market, and it’s one that needs to be disrupted for the survival of the planet.
Climate tech startup Geno has been hard at work doing so, producing a lower-impact, plant-based material that can replace fossil fuel-based nylon, while delivering the same quality and performance consumers expect, as well as the competitive economics.
Geno’s plant-based nylon is sourced from sugars from plants like sugar cane and industrial corn. And Geno’s plant-based alternative has been carefully designed to target and replace each nylon application and end use.
Kennedy explains that Geno’s plant-based nylon can be used in applications including apparel, film, carpet and automotive and electronic parts; Geno has penned recent deals with Covestro, Aquafil, Asahi Kasei and lululemon to disrupt fossil-fuel driven nylon use across multiple sectors.
Increasingly, Kennedy says, companies are working to meet rising consumer demand for sustainable products; “for example, lululemon committed to transitioning 100% of its products to sustainable materials and end-of-use solutions by 2030 as part of its Impact Agenda.” As part of that commitment, the global retailer partnered with Geno to adopt its innovative plant-based solution.
And it’s high-time more businesses followed suit: “I’d recommend to any businesses looking to implement sustainable solutions to take the time to evaluate their current supply chain process, who their partners are, and if there are alternative, sustainable materials that can be used during production,” says Kennedy.
“As a one-for-one replacement, the impact of our plant-based nylon can be rapid and significant — while targeting the same quality and performance as conventional nylon,” she adds.
And it’s not just the environment that stands to benefit from a rapid supply chain transformation towards sustainable materials, “our nylon innovation is compelling to consumers, brands and industry influencers, capturing attention and interest in its sustainability benefits,” says Kennedy. “Biotechnology can increasingly deliver products that meet customer needs, at commercial scale, with competitive economics. Collective action allows us to increase our collective impact.”
Biotechnology, and the use of renewable feedstocks, is increasingly seen as a viable solution with brands willing to take action to demonstrate their commitment to renewable innovations.
But the path to expansion for Geno remains one that has to be forged with a push for more transparency and visibility about supply chains used by brands.
“One of the biggest obstacles that we face is carbon trading markets and sustainability standards becoming better established. Consumers are driven to purchase more sustainable goods. While 95% of Americans questioned in a Geno study think sustainability is a good goal, 3 in 4 don’t know what half of the ingredients are on a product label — and it’s not clear how or where to learn about them,” says Kennedy.
Change and accountability starts with visibility, and it remains an upwards climb towards value chains that are fully circular, transparent, sustainable, and accounted for: “a major hurdle for brands is that many have historically had little visibility into their value chains — all the steps along the way that bring initial ingredients into everyday products and onto store shelves.
“Without this level of transparency, it’s quite difficult to know what ingredients make up their products, much less if there are more sustainable alternatives for those ingredients,” Kennedy explains.
“I have many conversations in which brand leaders are surprised to hear that plant-based nylon isn’t just a pipe dream, but an economically viable alternative coming on the horizon to fossil-based nylon.”
But as the planet warms and climate extremes impact livelihoods all across the globe, consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious.
“They’re grappling with how to keep up with the latest trends while also doing right by the environment,” says Kennedy. She believes an overwhelming shift to using more sustainable materials in consumer goods will be underway this decade.
Companies will need to replace their fossil-fuel derived products with more sustainable, plant-based alternatives; and with 8.7 million tons of fossil-fuel derived nylon produced each year, it’s a transition that can’t happen fast enough.
