Dennis Nobelius: Progressing our plans for first gigascale plant in Vietnam
In a bi-monthly briefing, Syre CEO Dennis Nobelius gives a candid update on the action and progress taking place inside Syre’s walls, and in the textile industry as a whole. In this edit, Dennis shares why Vietnam is shortlisted as home of our first gigascale textile-to-textile recycling plant — and the remaining parts of the puzzle to get going on the ground.
As I write this, we’re gathering the full Syre team at our US facilities in Mebane (R&D) and Cedar Creek (Blueprint Plant), a team that has grown from six to 30 to 46! It’s no doubt our biggest asset —representing close to 15 nationalities, different industries, and deep experience from the full value chain. What’s truly cool is that we despite these differences have a lot in common. More than anything, we share a commitment and ambition to succeed with the green transformation of this industry. I feel truly inspired to be working with each and every one of them.
Acquiring a pilot import license
So, what is going on at Syre? We have prepared and worked for a meeting with the Prime Minister of Vietnam for the better part of a year. Is that not very long time? And why?
First, we landed on Vietnam as the shortlisted country for our first gigascale textile-to-textile recycling plant due to its strong presence in the value chain with a big portion of the textile industry present, the possibility to access green energy, and the access to textile waste/feedstock.
Second, to make an impact you need to scale. And, to scale, we need access to massive amounts of feedstock. Vietnam alone is not enough nor prepared for sorting and collecting the amount we’re after. Hence, we are set to also import textile waste from neighbouring countries. And for this we need a pilot import license — which isn’t present today, and would require a blessing from the top.
It takes time to understand a country and its regulations, policies, and way of working. For us, it culminated a couple of weeks back when we got the blessing from the Prime Minister to kick off the detailed work to acquire a pilot license, and signed a MoU with the Province of Bin Dinh where we are set to dig deeper to fully understand the prerequisites in choosing an industrial park for our plant there.
Encouraged by the Prime Minister’s support
The experiences and impressions of Vietnam are that it’s a highly motivated, business-oriented, and relationship-driven country — that works hard and is set to access advanced technologies and invest in circular models whilst protecting the environment. In addition, the relationship with Sweden goes back a long time. Sweden was the first country to establish diplomatic relations and to acknowledge Vietnam as a country, and a few weeks ago, Vietnam celebrated its 50th unification anniversary.
On the trip, the delegation supporting Syre’s mission in Vietnam consisted of myself, our Chair and Co-Founder Susanna Campbell, and our Head of Public Affairs and Sustainability Stina Billinger. We were also supported by a team from the Swedish Embassy in Vietnam led by ambassador Johan Ndisi, and we also leveraged the experiences and guidance from FPT Software and our Senior Advisor in Vietnam Marco Breu. All in all, there was a lot of teamwork behind the scenes leading up to this.
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The Prime Minister, The Province Leaders, and the Ministers were all very supportive, asking questions related to our scale, our environmental footprint, our need of green energy, and the import license needed. The highlights of the meeting was broadcasted on primetime television in Vietnam, further proving how important these initiatives are for the ambitions of the country.
All in all, we’re grateful and encouraged by the extensive support expressed by the Vietnamese government. Our strong ambition is to support Vietnam in its green transition and as a global leader in the circular textile industry. The partnership with the Binh Dinh Province will, with the right conditions in place, be a great opportunity to jointly lead the textile shift.
So what are the next steps?
Well, to now dig deeper with experts into green energy, compare businesses in a few industrial parks in Bin Dinh, and start establishing our presence on site, which our Procurement Manager Wrood Ode will focus on as she relocates to Vietnam for a few months, you can read more about her focus for her time in Vietnam here. We will also continue our work of preparing detailed documentations for the Minister’s evaluation, and not at least — to secure that crucial import license in order to actually land in a true investment decision. And if not going as planned, well, then we need to shift location focus, and we are prepared for that as well.
A personal highlight: during the visit, we also had a business learnings meeting with the Chair of the VinFast Group, sharing the speed of execution in Vietnam where the VinFast cars has been developed in record speed in just a few years now seen everywhere on the streets in Vietnam. Impressive!
Outside of Vietnam then?
We continue to optimize and operationalize our R&D facilities and pilot plant in Mebane, we progress in our Blueprint Plant to be in Cedar Creek. We deepen our conversations with several strong brands engaged on the circularity journey and recognizing the scarcity and leadership to be taken in the textile industry.
And just to end where I started. With the team. I have given a promise to always be transparent along this journey. I think we are all facing many occasions where our optimistic and strong drive has needed to be altered a bit to face the harsh reality. Time plans change, world dynamics change, we learn new things about every country we step into. That said, we will constantly chase the alternative faster route to execute versus what is traditionally seen as best practice. That is simply the Syre way. Transformation is humbling, challenging, dynamic, but, yet so rewarding!