SAN LEANDRO, Calif. — January 7, 2025 — ZymoChem, the biotech company creating sustainable materials for everyday products, is proud to announce that it is now a Certified B Corporation™. This highlights the company’s dedication to meeting high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency set by B Lab™.
Building on its designation as a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC), ZymoChem is recognized for considering its impact on people, planet, and profit across its operations.
What It Means to Be a B Corp™
Certified B Corporations™ are part of a global community using business as a force for good. B Corps meet rigorous standards of verified performance weighing the impact of their decisions on workers, customers, suppliers, communities, and the environment.
By earning this certification, ZymoChem joins a network of over 9,000 businesses worldwide committed to fostering a more inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economic system.
“Achieving B Corp certification is a significant milestone for ZymoChem,” said Joe Giallanella, General Manager of ZymoChem’s Branded Products division. “It underscores our commitment to sustainability and our role in driving a real-zero economy. We not only help brands improve the sustainability of their products when they adopt our innovative bio-based solutions, we also impact the health of people and the planet.”
ZymoChem’s Impact
ZymoChem’s proprietary Carbon Conserving (C2) microbes transform renewable feedstocks into bio-based materials while minimizing carbon dioxide emissions. This breakthrough technology enables the replacement of fossil-based ingredients with bio-derived, low-carbon, and biodegradable alternatives in everyday products. For example, ZymoChem’s solutions address the environmental challenges posed by hygiene products, which are the third-largest contributor to U.S. landfill waste.
The dual recognition as a PBC and a B Corp solidifies ZymoChem’s reputation as a sustainability leader in the biotechnology industry – and it aims to inspire other companies in the sector to embed sustainability and social impact into their business models.
To learn more about ZymoChem’s role in creating a fossil-free future with its bio-based materials, visit www.zymochem.com.
CARY, N.C. — January 7, 2025 — INDA, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry, today announced that registration is open for the IDEA®25 International Conference and Exhibition on April 29-May 1, 2025, at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Florida.
For the first time at IDEA, the two-day conference will be dedicated exclusively to sustainability, recognizing its critical importance to the nonwovens industry. The conference will bring together C-suite leaders, business development professionals, sustainability managers, product developers, regulatory teams, sales, and marketing to advance “Nonwovens for a Healthier Planet.”
The regional market overviews and company presentations that have previously been part of the conference program will be moved to the exhibition portion of IDEA, which will spotlight product innovations and solutions from leading companies across the industry.
“Industry leaders will convene at IDEA25 to share knowledge and insights that will propel the sustainability movement within the nonwovens sector,” said Dr. Matt O’Sickey, INDA’s director of Education & Technical Affairs. “We are excited to provide a collaborative platform where innovation meets environmental responsibility, ensuring the health of our planet and the future of our industry.”
Among the topics industry experts will explore in presentations and panel discussions at IDEA25 are:
Regulations: Upcoming regulations in the U.S., European Union (EU), and the United Nations impacting sustainability efforts
Product and Process Innovations: Sourcing sustainable materials featuring natural fibers, advances in biodegradability and compostability, and fiber-to-nonwoven recycling and Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) initiatives
Circular Economy and Bio-Materials: Responsible sourcing, innovations in sustainability, and end-of-life solutions that reduce waste and lower energy consumption, leading to significant cost and resource savings
Details regarding the presenters and abstracts for the conference will be announced in the coming weeks.
IDEA25 Highlights
The IDEA® Achievement Awards, in partnership with Nonwovens Industry magazine, will be presented based on the results of online voting in six categories, including sustainability achievement.
The event will kick off on April 28th with training courses covering the essentials of nonwovens and market-focused areas, including a Nonwovens 101 short course on manufacturing nonwovens and advanced sessions on technical design and performance in baby and adult care absorbent systems, wet wipes, period products, and filter media training.
In conjunction with IDEA25, INDA also announced registration has opened for FiltXPO™ 2025, the International Filtration Conference and Exhibition, on April 29-May 1, 2025, at the Miami Beach Convention Center. For updates on both events, visit the INDA website https://www.inda.org/
Posted: January 7, 2025
Source: INDA, the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry
WEINHEIM, Germany — January 7, 2025 — Mehler Texnologies, a specialist in coated technical textiles is well known for the high quality of its products. The company needs to adapt to market changes and therefore plans to close down the Fulda plant.
For several years, Mehler Texnologies has been faced by a persistently sluggish market environment. In view of considerable overcapacities within its own production network, the company therefore plans to close its Fulda plant in the course of 2025. On the basis of the current situation, 192 employees will be affected by the decision.
Mehler Texnologies has already notified the responsible employee representative bodies of its plans and socially compatible solutions are being developed in joint discussions. The specific date of the plant closure depends on the outcome of these discussions.
MONTREAL — January 6, 2025 — Gildan Activewear Inc. is pleased to share that it has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability™ North America Index (DJSI North America)1, one of the world’s leading ESG performance rankings for publicly traded companies. This marks the 12th consecutive year the Company has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. The results highlight that Gildan continues to be a sustainability leader, ranking in the 98th percentile of the Textiles, Apparel, and Luxury Goods industry2 out of 189 companies assessed in this industry. Gildan was the only apparel manufacturing company included in the DJSI North America.
“We take pride in being included in the DJSI North America again this year. ESG is an integral part of Gildan’s long-term business strategy, and our continued inclusion in the DJSI reflects our two-decade long commitment to sustainability,” says Glenn Chamandy, president and CEO of Gildan. “With our Next Generation ESG strategy firmly rooted in the Gildan Sustainable Growth strategy, we are paving the path for an even more sustainable future for Gildan, our people, our communities, and the environment.”
The Dow Jones Sustainability Indices (DJSI) are a family of best-in-class benchmarks for investors who have recognized that sustainable business practices are critical to generating long-term shareholder value and who wish to reflect their sustainability convictions in their investment portfolios. The indices measure the performance of companies selected from an Invited Universe that satisfy Environment, Social, Governance & Economic criteria using a best-in-class approach. Constituents of the DJSI are determined using a company’s S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment (CSA) score. The Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index represents the top 20% of the largest 600 North American companies in the S&P Global Broad Market Index that lead the field in terms of sustainability.
1. Index Inclusion Announced on December 23, 2024.
2. CSA Score as of September 17, 2024.
PARIS — January 7, 2025 — After joining forces for many years to create the annual Paris Composites Week, combining the SAMPE (Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering) Europe Summit and JEC WORLD, the global event about composite materials, showcasing their applications in various industries, both the SAMPE Global and JEC organizations have decided to expand their cooperation, by launching the “SAMPE Technical Sessions” during JEC World 2025, and they have also committed to highlight young engineers.
Rebekah Stacha, CEO of SAMPE, and Eric Pierrejean, CEO of JEC have signed a dedicated agreement to include technical programming organised by SAMPE Global, within the Conferences program of JEC World 2025. These SAMPE Technical Sessions will take place on March 5 at JEC World 2025 in the Open Stage, in Hall 6, from 9.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. And for the first time, JEC World will host the final of the new “Young Engineers Challenge” by SAMPE Europe.
Eric Pierrejean, JEC CEO, stated: “Both SAMPE and JEC are entirely dedicated to the composites and advanced materials community, fostering knowledge sharing and networking at their events. The success of our joint activities for many years and our mutual understanding have led us to expand our cooperation to present worldwide achievements and highlight young engineers.”
Rebekah Stacha, SAMPE CEO stated: “SAMPE Global is proud to collaborate with JEC World to bring technical programming directly to the show floor this year, showcasing expertise from our regions on some of the most critical and innovative topics in advanced materials and composites. This partnership reflects our shared commitment to uniting the global SAMPE community and the wider composites community of JEC, driving innovation and advancing the industry.”
Save the Dates:
SAMPE Europe 2025 Summit
March 3 – Pullman Paris Tour Eiffel Hotel
JEC World 2025
March 4-6 – Paris Nord Villepinte
SAMPE Technical Sessions 2025 and Young Engineer Challenge @ JEC World
TORONTO — January 6, 2025 — Myant Corp., a provider of chronic disease prevention through precision medicine, announced the acquisition of mmHg Inc., a digital health company specializing in remote blood pressure monitoring, cardiovascular risk reduction, and chronic disease management. This acquisition expands Myant’s geographic footprint and market reach to the USA, where mmHg has a significant existing customer base, including a partnership with one of the largest manufacturers of highly accurate, reliable medical devices and health products, A&D Medical.
This acquisition is part of a broader strategy of “prevention through precision” to drive forward a new era of personalized, AI-enabled remote healthcare.
mmHg’s platform focuses on delivering efficient, guideline-concordant care for managing cardiovascular health, particularly in remote settings. Healthcare providers gain the capability to remotely track and analyze blood pressure and a spectrum of vital cardiovascular indicators through its innovative software. By aligning patient data with clinical best practices, mmHg enhances decision-making precision, driving timely and accurate interventions. Esteemed institutions across North America, such as Beth Israel Deaconess (Harvard Medical), Johns Hopkins, Columbia University, NYU, Tulane University, and the University of British Columbia, rely on the platform to advance both patient outcomes and clinical research.
By combining mmHg’s advanced remote monitoring capabilities with Myant’s advanced material and textile computing technology, healthcare providers will have access to continuous, real-time patient data, enabling earlier detection of health risks, personalized treatment plans, and better management of chronic conditions. The result is early disease detection that improves health outcomes, reduces hospital visits, and enhances the quality of life.
“Our company is on a mission to make healthy aging a reality for millions. We want to turn the tide on chronic conditions and redefine what it means to grow older. This acquisition enhances our ability to offer comprehensive cardiovascular monitoring and risk management solutions, strengthening our role in transforming digital health and enabling this large ageing demographic to live younger, longer” said Tony Chahine, CEO at Myant.
“The combination of Myant’s cutting-edge textile technology and mmHg’s clinically-infused software architecture will no doubt create the next generation of personalized care-delivery, where patients will be able to transmit clinical-grade, continuous vitals data feeds to a platform that presents the data in an efficient and clinically relevant manner to care teams.” said Peter Wood, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at mmHg Inc.
This strategic acquisition aligns with Myant’s ongoing efforts to leverage AI and advanced materials to improve patient outcomes and extend human life, and adds new capabilities to Myant’s fully vertical integrated solutions
SINGAPORE — January 6, 2025 — SHEIN is transforming the way its denim is being produced by increasing its adoption of Cool Transfer Denim Printing, a technology that consumes less water and energy compared to traditional denim manufacturing methods, while at the same time creating a more streamlined production process.
Cool Transfer Denim Printing
Approximately 380,000 pieces of SHEIN’s denim apparel produced in 2024 were made using the Cool Transfer Denim Printing process, saving more than 10,000 metric tons of water compared to traditional denim production techniques. This marks a 90 percent increase from 2023, when 200,000 denim pieces were made using this innovative method. Since introducing Cool Transfer Denim Printing in 2022, SHEIN has saved nearly 19,500 metric tons of water. These milestones illustrate the company’s ability to scale innovation within its supply chain, integrating advanced manufacturing practices, while promoting resource efficiency.
Traditional denim manufacturing is known for being resource-intensive, requiring vast amounts of water and energy for processes such as dyeing, bleaching, and washing. Recognizing these challenges, SHEIN partnered with NTX® in 2021 to introduce Cool Transfer Denim Printing, an innovative process that not only minimizes the use of water and energy but also simplifies the production cycle, ensuring precision and efficiency at every step.
This method of printing involves a digital printer using reactive ink to print denim textures, artwork or patterns onto a transfer film. The designs on the transfer film are then imprinted onto white denim fabric using cold transfer equipment, replicating the effects of washing denim to produce features like faded finishes, whiskering, and retro-worn effects. Verified by Bureau Veritas in October 2023, the process reduces water usage by 70.5 percent compared to conventional denim washing methods.
In addition to the savings in water and energy, the Cool Transfer Denim Printing process eliminates the need for workers to be in contact with harmful chemicals, such as chlorine and caustic soda, which may be used in traditional denim production. By reducing exposure to these substances, SHEIN aims to foster safer working conditions for workers providing support on denim production.
Innovative On-demand Denim Production Process Aimed at Reducing Water
The integration of Cool Transfer Denim Printing complements SHEIN’s on-demand business model, which leverages a digitalized supply chain to match customer demand with merchandise supply. SHEIN’s process involves launching new products in small initial batches of 100-200 items, assessing customer feedback in real-time, and restocking items based on demand. This approach ensures that suppliers produce what customers want, while helping to reduce overproduction and excess inventory.
Cool Transfer Denim Printing’s streamlined and efficient production process aligns perfectly with this methodology. By simplifying denim manufacturing and enabling precise replication of intricate designs and effects, the technology supports smaller production runs that can be quickly scaled based on customer interest. This synergy allows SHEIN to produce denim pieces to meet demand, while at the same time working towards reducing any additional waste.
Unlocking New Creative Opportunities
Cool Transfer Denim Printing is also a catalyst for creativity and innovation. This technology provides designers with unprecedented flexibility to produce vibrant, intricate, and highly detailed prints that were once challenging to achieve with traditional methods.
The process enables precise replication of denim textures and effects. These capabilities open up limitless possibilities for SHEIN’s design teams, allowing them to craft unique and standout denim pieces that resonate with diverse customer preferences and push the boundaries of modern fashion.
This initiative is part of SHEIN’s broader strategy to accelerate change in manufacturing processes, become more resource-efficient and promote innovation in the future of fashion.
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — January 6, 2025 — X-Rite Inc., a global supplier of color science and technology, announces the Judge LED light booth, designed for precise visual color evaluation as industries shift from fluorescent to energy-efficient LED lighting. Building on 60 years of lighting innovation, this new light booth incorporates advanced LED technology to ensure compliance with environmental regulations and helps brands and suppliers transition smoothly to LED-based color assessments, maintaining quality without operational disruptions.
The global shift to LED lighting, driven by energy efficiency mandates and governmental regulations, presents a new challenge for industries such as textiles, automotive, paint and coatings, plastics, and packaging that depend on color accuracy. Fluorescent and LED illuminants have distinct spectral power distributions (SPD) that can dramatically impact color perception. To maintain color consistency across the supply chain — from design to production to retail — visual evaluation programs must integrate LED standards into their color workflows.
“The Judge LED light booth is a future-proof solution for brands and manufacturers transitioning from fluorescent lighting to comply with new energy regulations,” said Albert S Laforet, director of Strategic Projects, X-Rite. “Our custom-designed LEDs are optimized to offer the best SPD match for legacy fluorescent tubes, including U30, U35, CWF and TL84, ensuring a seamless integration into color workflows. This allows companies to meet regulatory requirements, ensure color consistency, and prevent color discrepancies before final product assembly.”
“The Judge LED light booth is ready for use immediately and allows for faster and more consistent color assessments. Our goal is to make color management more efficient across our global supply chain,” said Carmen Keim, Colorist and Digital Pioneer at Sympatex Technologies, a pioneer for high-tech functional materials in clothing, footwear, accessories and technical fields.
Fast, Reliable and Consistent Color Assessment
The Judge LED light booth delivers precise and consistent color evaluation with seven distinct light sources that simulate a variety of lighting conditions. The seven light sources can be selected from a wide range of industry-leading standard illuminants, including LED D50, D65, LED-B2 3000K, LED 3500K, LED-B3 4000K, UV, A, CWF LED, TL84 LED, U30 LED, and U35 LED.
Key features of the Judge LED light booth include:
Instant Warm-Up: Eliminates waiting time to improve daily efficiency.
Stabilized Illuminants: Ensures color evaluation consistency by delivering calibrated illuminants that offer fixed intensity levels and stable chromaticity.
Directional D65 Daylight: Facilitates defect inspection and surface evaluation for characteristics like orange peel to ensure superior product quality on complex finishes.
Digital Evaluation: Offers an optional integrated calibrated monitor, allowing for the comparison of physical samples with digital material twins to ensure consistency between digital prototypes and physical products.
Energy Efficient: Operates quietly, produces minimal heat, consumes less energy, and has longer lasting illuminants than fluorescent light booths.
“The Judge LED light booth integrates visual and digital workflows, allowing designers, material suppliers, and marketers to compare digital renderings or material twins with physical samples under precise LED lighting. Paired with X-Rite’s end-to-end digital color solutions—including color specification, measurement, PANTORA virtual material creation, and color formulation and quality control software — companies can improve decision-making, streamline approval cycles, and accelerate time to market while ensuring consistent quality,” continued Laforet.
Register for the Judge LED Virtual Event
To formally introduce this innovative light booth, X-Rite will host a virtual event on January 9th at 10 am ET. During the event, technology experts, brand owners, and manufacturing suppliers will discuss the shift to LED technology and its impact on color evaluation processes, plus provide an in-depth look at the features and benefits of the Judge LED light booth.
Register for the event at https://go.xrite.com/Let-There-Be-LED-A-New-Standard-in-Color-Evaluation
The Judge LED light booth is now available worldwide. For more information on Judge LED, visit https://www.xrite.com/categories/light-booths/judge-led-light-booth
STOCKHOLM, Sweden — January 6, 2025 — Members of TMAS – the Swedish textile machinery association – are providing crucial manufacturing and automation services to the filtration sector, which is an often invisible but very significant part of the global textile industry.
Technical woven and nonwoven fabrics are used in a wide variety of products in filtration systems for air, gas and liquid filtration, touching on almost every facet of life in the 21st Century.
They are crucial to aerospace and road transportation and a vast range of industrial processes and also to be found in every home, hotel and institutional building in air conditioning systems and household appliances such as washing machines and vacuum cleaners.
Interfil manufactures produces a staggering range of over 15,000 filter media variants
At its Skjåk manufacturing plant in Norway, for example, Interfil manufactures an annual 230,000 air filter units from a staggering range of some 15,000 variants, with 9,000 products moving continuously through the differing stages of the plant at any time each day, and a daily finished output of 1,100 products.
It’s a similar situation at the U.S.-based plant of Filtration System Products (FSP) in Farmington, Mo., which now has a daily production of over 2,200 filter hoses and media.
Material handling
Both Interfil and FSP rely on the automated material handling expertise of TMAS member Eton Systems.
The Eton Systems team at the recent Filtech exhibition in Cologne, Germany. Left to right: Magnus Sundgren, Fredrik Andersson, Sven Sörbö and Olof Strömberg.
Eton’s individually addressable product carriers are designed to eliminate manual transportation and minimise handling throughout a manufacturing plant, ensuring each individual product arrives at its correct position precisely when required for each separate process step.
Interfil has relied on Eton automation since 2014, when a 50-metre overhead conveyor system was designed and installed to link the company’s two production halls at the Skjåk plant, eliminating the need for manual handling and truck transport between the facilities. This has resolved the challenge of having semi-finished products made far from the final assembly area, not only improving efficiency, quality control and component traceability across all parts of production, but also increasing on-site safety due to the need for fewer trucks.
Eton automation at FSP in St Louis.
FSP has meanwhile calculated that since installing an Eton system in 2023, it has increased its production output by 60 percent using the same number of operators and the same working hours as with the previous manual system. Eton’s inbuilt quality system also ensures that only 100% perfect products are unloaded from the system, allowing for a much more efficient quality control process. In addition, Eton’s compact method of moving single units through the production process has saved floor space and created a safer and more ergonomic work environment.
“FSP wasn’t sure if it was possible to find an automated production system that could handle the varying demands of filtration media production, due to the many style variations, but our system enables all carriers to be tracked in real-time and proved to be the perfect solution,” said Eton CEO Jerker Krabbe.
Filter bag production
ACG’s microfactory for filter bag production.
A fully automated microfactory for the production of fully finished filter bags has meanwhile been developed by TMAS members ACG Kinna Automatic and ACG Nyström, in cooperation with Juki Central Europe.
Until now, woven or nonwoven needlefelt filter bags been assembled and finished in laborious and time-consuming cut and sew operations by third party suppliers.
“The automation of these essential steps eliminates the need for the many hours of labor-intensive manual work that has previously been necessary,” says ACG Kinna Automatic CEO Christian Moore. “The output is 120 finished filter bags per hour and the entire configuration is guided by precise automatic steering and alignment, with quality control handled by the latest high-definition vision cameras. This type of automation is the way forward, not just for filter bags, but for many industries who heavily rely on such consumables in their operations.”
The ACG microfactory’s configuration is based on two separate interconnecting modules – the Smart Filter Line (SFL) and the Filtermaster 2.0.
The SFL handles the fabric feeding from rolls and its folding prior to seam construction, which can either be by automatic sewing, welding or with sewing and taping, depending on specifications. Very rapid changeover of the modular seaming methods can be achieved during product changes. The specific size of the now fully-tubular fabric is then precisely cut to size for each individual unit and further folded ready to be fed into the Filtermaster 2.0.
“The innovations coming from our companies are far-ranging and characterised by an advanced grasp of automation techniques and the need for more sustainable processing methods that is being demanded by their customers,” said TMAS Secretary General Therese Premler-Andersson. “Eliminating manual transportation and minimising handling is proving essential for textile manufacturers, especially across Europe and the United States, in providing competitive advantages.”
Posted: January 6, 2025
Source: TMAS – The Swedish Textile Machinery Association
NINGBO, China — December 25, 2024 — China Petroleum & Chemical Corp.’s (Sinopec) recently announced the mechanical completion of the second-phase expansion and advanced materials project at its Zhenhai Refinery. This milestone sets new benchmarks for innovation, smart manufacturing, and energy efficiency in large-scale projects. The refinery’s capacity has now been upgraded to 40 million tons per year, contributing to the Zhejiang Ningbo Petrochemical Industrial Base surpassing a total refining capacity of 50 million tons annually. The achievement solidifies its position as China’s largest, most advanced, and globally competitive petrochemical industrial base.
Sinopec Completes Construction of China’s Largest Petrochemical Industrial Base.
Located in the Yangtze River Delta, a key downstream product consumption hub, the Zhejiang Ningbo Petrochemical Industrial Base plays a vital role in Sinopec’s value chain. The second-phase expansion and advanced materials project, with a total investment of CNY 41.6 billion, incorporates 18 production units, including atmospheric distillation, catalytic cracking, polypropylene, and propane dehydrogenation units. By emphasizing chemical-focused processes, the project creates multiple high-value-added supply chains.
The facility’s expanded production capacity supports the development of high-end polyolefins, advanced materials, and specialty chemicals. It is expected to provide approximately 8 million tons of petrochemical products annually, significantly boosting the overall capacity of supply chains for industries such as automotive, home appliances, and textiles in the region. This expansion is forecast to generate trillions of yuan in upstream and downstream industrial value.
The project achieved remarkable progress in technological innovation and sustainability. Highlights include:
Localization of 10 core technologies, including the world’s highest-load vertical labyrinth compressor.
Extensive deployment of smart technologies, enabling simultaneous delivery of digital and physical factories.
Integration of a fully localized industrial operating system and a self-developed industrial internet platform to enhance decision-making and management.
Implementation of comprehensive energy-saving measures, achieving an overall reduction in energy consumption of 11.7 percent.
Safety and quality were paramount during construction, with over 90 million consecutive safe man-hours recorded and a 100 percent quality pass rate for all units, setting a new industry benchmark.
Zhenhai Refinery, Sinopec’s largest integrated refining and chemical enterprise, boasts an ethylene production capacity of 2.2 million tons per year. It is also the only enterprise in China consistently ranked in the top performance group of the Solomon Global Ethylene Performance Evaluation.
SAN LEANDRO, Calif. — January 7, 2025 — ZymoChem, the biotech company creating sustainable materials for everyday products, is proud to announce that it is now a Certified B Corporation™. This highlights the company’s dedication to meeting high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency set by B Lab™.
