Christmas trees to paint and sweeteners, newly discovered protein, hemp beard oils, potato waste fiberboard, biobased outdoor apparel and cosmetics, and more: The Digest’s Top 10 Innovations for the week of January 10th

#4 Kathmandu reshapes outdoor apparel with bio-based synthetics and plant-based colors

In New Zealand, adventure and travel brand Kathmandu is becoming more well known for its sustainability and eco-friendly fashion thanks to their commitment to bio-based innovations, efforts like their 100% Responsible Down Standard certification, and use of plant-based colors for their fabrics.

Oliver Milliner (Sustainability Specialist) and Manu Rastogi (Textile Research & Development / Responsible Materials Manager) told Eco Warrior Princess, “As oil reserves decline and the stability of oil comes under risk, a lot of new exciting developments have been happening in the “bio-based synthetics” workspace that give us alternatives to manufacturing textiles, whilst opening up opportunities for new performance capabilities with less impact on resource use.”

“These bio-based synthetics use raw materials that come from natural renewable resources such as plants, sugars, agricultural waste etc. instead of fossil fuels. The bio-feedstocks used to make them have also been evolving from the first generation food-based crops such as corn to the second generation agriculture based waste products such as nutshells to now the third generation resources that do not compete with the food production at all such as algae, microbes etc. Our challenge – and opportunity at Kathmandu is to how to accelerate and bring these exciting innovations to scale.”
More on the story, here.