Walmart and H&M are trying to turn carbon dioxide into clothes
It might not seem like it when you casually click a Buy Now button while shopping online, but that new t-shirt is part of a complex global trade network that has detrimental consequences for the environment. Consulting giant McKinsey estimates that the fashion industry alone accounts for up to 4% of total global climate emissions. These growing emissions are driven by an increased appetite for ever more new clothing. A 2021 industry report found that the amount of clothing produced each year more than doubled between 2000 and 2015. This worrying trend has led to a boom in the number of scientists and start-ups trying to find a solution to the problem with all sorts of less polluting yarns.
One such company, San Francisco-based Rubi, thinks it can help solve the problem by sucking up some of that harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) and use it to create carbon-neutral textiles that can then be made into clothing. The carbon transformation process mimics what happens in trees, but inside a bioreactor and at a rapid pace. The result should be a fiber virtually identical to the real thing, but without the need to cut down more trees. It’s a similar process to lab-grown meat, but for plant fibers. So far, at least 15 major brands, including H&M and Walmart, have reportedly tested the technology, although it may still be a while before blue jeans from bioreactors are commonly seen hanging on store shelves.
Need to quickly transform carbon dioxide? Call the enzymes.
Rubi’s conversion process fundamentally relies on using a variety of enzymes (what CEO and co-founder Neeka Mashouf calls an enzyme “cascade”) to chemically transform captured carbon dioxide into cellulose. In nature, this cellulosic production system occurs when trees slowly absorb carbon from the atmosphere and convert it into the cellulose found in their trunks and branches. For centuries, clothing manufacturers turned this cellulose into pulp, then used it to weave textiles or turn it into yarn. Viscose, rayon, lyocell, and Tencel (a brand of lyocell) are all examples of widely used textiles derived from cellulose.
Rubi takes the tree out of the equation and instead uses shipping container-sized bioreactors filled with enzymes to speed up the process. In an interview posted on YouTube, Trevor Boram, senior scientist at Rubi Laboratories, called the enzymes used “biological catalysts of the cell” that rapidly accelerate chemical reactions. This already happens in nature. Humans just step on the accelerator.
âI think humans taking these enzymes to the next level is very fascinating,â Boram said.
Clothing derived from carbon dioxide is not yet commercially available, but that may soon change. In 2023, Rubi entered into a pilot agreement with Walmart that called for it to test the use of its carbon capture technology to explore how it could be properly used on a larger scale in the lean giant’s supply chain. Since then, 14 other companies, including H&M, have also explored the technology. Ideally, these types of partnerships should be win-win. Rubi can suck up carbon dioxide and produce paper pulp, while major brands are clearly on the path to achieving their environmental sustainability goals.
Why technological solutions for sustainable development remain a risky bet
However, all of this hypothetical harmony ultimately depends on Rubi’s ability to reliably replicate his process at scale. This is often easier said than done. Several companies have already tried, without success, to find technological solutions to make textiles less polluting. Perhaps most notable is Swedish textile recycling company Renewcell, whose goal was to take old clothes and turn them into new cotton fiber. Renewcell received generous funding and opened its first factory in 2022, with partnerships with major fashion brands. And yet, just two years later, problems of scale forced it to file for bankruptcy.
âCan it perform reproducibly at scale, meeting the customer’s quality specifications as they actually need, meeting their deadlines and deliverables? » CEO of Bolts Threads (another trendy bioengineering company), Dan Widmaier, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “Can this be funded at this scale? These are the things that break this whole thing.”
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Of course, there’s also another, much less high-tech or glamorous solution to the textile waste problem: simply buy fewer clothes. While it might seem fun for a brief moment to change your wardrobe every season, this mindset is partly responsible for causing fast fashion brands to prioritize quantity over quality and accept massive waste in the name of keeping prices low.
At the same time, it is also likely that the ship full of clothes has already left port. Efforts to significantly limit textile waste and reduce emissions to safe levels, particularly as demand for clothing increases in more regions, will likely require a combination of frugal consumer behaviors and innovative technological solutions like carbon capture. And nothing quite says âcenterpieceâ like a high derivative of carbon dioxide.
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