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Finnish textile startup Spinnova has officially opened the first commercial-scale facility producing its namesake fibre, billed as a sustainable replacement for man-made cellulosics like viscose and other key materials used in fashion. The facility, called Woodspin, could be a breakthrough for circular materials, save for one problem: the fibre is not circular. It’s sourced from trees grown by the world’s largest wood pulp producer, Suzano, which owns 50 per cent of the facility.
“Spinnova has promising tech, but if it’s only utilised to process wood or forest fibre, then it won’t reach its game-changing potential. We have more than enough wood mills already in the world,” says Nicole Rycroft, founder and executive director of forest protection group Canopy.
The technology’s main promise is that it offers a cleaner way to make viscose, traditionally a chemical-intensive process, and has a lower water and carbon footprint than conventional cotton. Spinnova, which has worked with brands including Adidas, Arket and Marimekko, has promised to quickly reduce fashion’s footprint and described its fibre as “fully circular”, referencing its minimal water and energy use and saying that heat is the only byproduct. The biggest concern surrounding most fibre production, however, is the feedstock, and Woodspin’s use of virgin wood raises doubts that the facility can offer a true eco-friendly solution for fashion.
Spinnova says they are using wood as their “spearhead raw material” because it enables them to scale production faster and aims to build an annual capacity of 1 million tonnes by 2033.
“We see that it is important to bring more sustainable alternatives to the market quickly in order to mitigate the emissions and other environmental impacts of the industry without delay. We are also studying options to scale fibre production with recycled raw material sources,” says Spinnova’s chief sustainability officer Shahriare Mahmood, who says he agrees with claims that the industry needs circular solutions urgently. “While the circular economy concepts and the supply of renewal feedstocks develop, we have decided to build a scalable solution based on the most sustainable virgin material — in parallel to our work with recycled materials.”
But Spinnova’s reliance on new resource extraction is seen as problematic when researchers are clear that overuse of natural resources is responsible for much of the ecological damage occurring globally. And without a clear, agreed-upon definition of circularity in the industry, these types of conflicting messages can further confuse what it takes to achieve circularity.
Rycroft acknowledges the areas where Spinnova’s technology offers to improve upon conventional viscose production: as a mechanical process, it avoids the chemicals that are traditionally involved in transforming wood pulp into fibre and uses significantly lower amounts of energy and water. However, she says those benefits are wiped out when wood is used as the feedstock because that’s where the bulk of the material’s — any material’s — footprint is generated. Viscose has been associated with rampant deforestation in some of the world’s most precious ecosystems; Suzano says it operates on already degraded land and only harvests trees that it plants, but eucalyptus plantations are not the transformative solution that scientists say is needed to protect and restore biodiversity and the ecosystems it depends on.
Spinnova says Woodspin only uses fibres made from “certified, sustainably grown eucalyptus trees” and that all of its wood pulp is sourced from Suzano, “which has a strict zero deforestation policy and only plants on land that was previously degraded”.
Eucalyptus production, however, has been associated with soil acidification and loss of soil organic carbon — potentially generating more harm than good for local ecosystems.
Spinnova’s technology relies on cellulose, which is derived from wood, but it can also source other organic materials, whether it’s agricultural residues, discarded clothing made from natural fibres or even leather waste. Tapping such waste streams would make Spinnova an exciting and transformative option, says Rycroft. “They have a really promising technology that can use agricultural residues. It would be such a welcomed next-gen addition to the market.”
Suzano could be part of that shift as well, she says, and the entire partnership could potentially be adapted to offer a model for the industry more broadly to follow. But Suzano also has a chequered past when it comes to environmental and social practices. Last year, a group of Indigenous Pataxó people in Brazil released a video manifesto and launched an occupation of a eucalyptus plantation inside territory they said was theirs, eventually setting fire to it and demanding that the multinational companies leave their land for good. The eucalyptus plantations threatened both their land and their existence as a people, they said, adding that Suzano was partially responsible for the destruction of their territory, according to news outlet Mongabay.
Suzano says it works closely with local communities in Brazil “to understand their needs and roll out comprehensive shared value and social income generation programmes”. The company also says it has a “regenerative business model”, planting over 1.2 million trees every day and only harvesting what it plants, and that it is unfair to characterise water and chemical use on eucalyptus farms as intensive. “Suzano’s eucalyptus farms are not irrigated, and chemicals are typically only used for the first two years of a seven-year cycle. Like all cultivation, farming eucalyptus can be done well and badly.”
With a production capacity of 1,000 tonnes of fibre per year, the new Woodspin plant represents a fraction of Spinnova’s eventual goal, meaning it still has the potential to scale with waste feedstocks rather than trees. Mahmood says Spinnova’s technology works well with pulp from a range of sources, including textile-to-textile waste and agricultural residuals, and also that its work to develop fibres from leather waste “is also proceeding”.
That’s the direction Rycroft hopes to see both Spinnova and Suzano pursue next.
“We need the big conventional producers to be reducing their reliance on forest fibre by 50 per cent over the next eight to 10 years,” she says. “For a big incumbent or conventional producer like Suzano, this is a fantastic opportunity for them to diversify their fibre basket. This is an off ramp for them.”
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