Dennis Nobelius: Transforming the textile industry from within

We publicly launched Syre six months ago, and I had the chance to start six months before that, with the company still in stealth mode. This following a two-year conceptualization phase and a technology being refined for additionally seven years. When now reflecting on why I joined, I realize I have quite the story to share, recollecting what has surprised me and what has been both easier and harder than I expected.

Textiles are everywhere, but where do they come from?‍

Digging deeper into the textile industry is very interesting. And fun. Now, I see textile fibers everywhere. Especially polyester. It’s of course in apparel like sports and outdoor clothing, shirts, and jackets, but also in automotive airbags, safety belts, car seat upholsteries, and home interiors such as sofas, carpets, building insulations, and more. As I’ve deep-dived into the textile industry, it’s become clear that the supply chain is highly distributed and fragmented in need of traceability and mapping.

Where does the raw material come from? What is the current visibility from garment, fabric, yarn, fiber, new or better recycled material? How do we support the industry with a new and revised setup that removes the need to use oil as the basis for polyester? How do we make use of what we already have in a never-ending loop? And start to build this new setup almost from scratch, transforming today’s textile waste into tomorrow’s raw material.

Challenge! Textile waste and traceability

One unforeseen challenge is the view on textile waste. Due to its inherent nature, countries have been trying to block textile waste from entering their borders. Understandably. But this has resulted in custom codes that block imports, which, if lifted, could enable business growth and acceleration of the circular economy.

And on top of that, I did not see this one coming, the traceability demands, which in some countries require all raw materials to be traced back to its origin to protect from child labor and misdemeanor — all with good purpose — but how do you track second hand used material to its origin? Impossible.

Collaboration, off take agreements and all hands on deck

To accelerate the great textile shift, a key element is to collaborate and partner up. We (=the industry) would need to work differently than we do today — not when it comes to deciding where to use polyester, but rather how to secure sustainable business happening.

There are many startups and innovators around the globe, but what is lacking is financial muscle and the scalability. This is where we need a handshake between the scaleups and the brands. Most crucial in the form of offtake agreements. These agreements have been successfully applied in other industries such as steel. So what are they? They’re binding agreements between brands and innovators, securing capacity for the brands while providing a foundation for scaleups to secure funding and actually build that capacity. Hence — building the ecosystem in tandem, with limited risks for the brands, as they consume the raw material when quality and volume is secured and delivered.

So, we mapped 450 apparel brands, 25 automotive OEMs, and 100 home interior brands versus the forecasted global capacity from 27 recyclers. By considering probability, legislation pressure, and Science Based Target initiative sign ups, we identified a 12 million metric ton supply-demand gap by 2030. We need all hands on deck to deliver!

ESG challenges and societal impact

What else needs to happen? Connecting the dots, securing that polyester material is a true drop-in product into the existing supply chain. Some minor adaptations and tweaks are necessary, leveraging the knowledge and experience of the staple fiber producers, spinners, fabric, the garment/end-product manufacturers and others involved in delivering products such as airbags or apparel to the end consumers. All done with strong traceability and transparency across the value chain. And by transitioning to green energy.

Moving upstream a bit, access to raw material? Meaning textile waste. This includes garments that are not used anymore (while respecting the waste hierarchy), production waste that might otherwise be incinerated, and other sources of textile waste. This area is very fragmented and complex — perhaps the most complex in terms of waste flows, hierarchies, blends, sorting technologies and volumes.

Here, we work with partners on a global scale, securing off take agreements from the scaleups to the feedstock partners, mirroring the agreements from brands, tying the chain together from end to end. Here we will face ESG challenges, as some of the current markets operate under working conditions that are, at best, doubtful. These conditions resemble what I imagine the fashion industry’s tier 1 and 2 suppliers experienced a few decades ago: dispersed, large bales of textiles and working conditions involving dust and heavy loads.

Our approach is to begin working with partners who have this under control. We are set to agree on a joint improvement roadmap that we will not only monitor but actively support in the coming years, aiming to elevate standards to where much of the fashion industry is today. This area is probably the one that has surprised me the most, i.e. the positive side of things — we can make a societal impact by the way we approach this.

The Syre story

Back to where Syre started. It was not by inventing a new technology as might be expected from a startup. Instead, it started with H&M recognizing that they had invested in many innovators, but none that had scaled offering them a global supplier or partner capable of significantly impacting their sustainability targets.

It began with CFO Adam Karlsson. From there, Adam, Björn Magnusson and Erik Lagerblad connected with our Chair Susanna Campbell, who then teamed up with Vargas — Harald Mix and Carl-Erik Lagercrantz, who are THE green impact venture builders in the Nordics, and perhaps even in Europe. With companies like Northvolt, Polarium, Stegra (previously H2 GreenSteel), Aira, and more to come from their initiatives. Overall investment and funding levels at impressive levels, needed to create a global impact.

‍The heart and soul — the technology

So, customer need was clear. Scaleup experiences and financial structure as well. Technology needed! A substantial scouting effort was conducted with the mission of identifying what can scale at cost and what is available to team up with. The perfect match was found with the Premirr team, Matthew Parrot and Chris Luft, and an agreement was made.

The technology has the benefit of being a continuous process, with environmentally friendly, reused chemicals (like glycol, which is found in cars), operating at relatively low temperatures compared to other technologies, and involving very few steps, which means lower investment costs. This now is the basis of Syre.

And on top of that, the team also made substantial innovations happen on one of the core needs of the process. More on this in a later post. So, we are set to bring this technology to the world at global scale. We have already started with the existing pilot facility in Raleigh, North Carolina, and in coming months, will be moving end-to-end equipment into our blueprint plant. This 10K metric ton plant has been designed over the last two years. And all the equipment is now on boats or standing in warehouses prior to being installed. Exciting times!

Building a super strong investor base

On this journey, our founders and board challenged us to bring along strong investors with the willingness and capability to support us throughout the entire journey. Specifically, we sought investors and partners from the three verticals we are focusing on. And what a result! We received continued support from our founders, H&M Group and Vargas, and welcomed TPG Rise Climate as a founding investor — one of the world’s biggest green funds. Alongside them, we partnered with Giant VC from the UK and Norrsken VC, the leading Nordic impact VC firm, as well as Volvo Cars and IKEA’s investment arm IMAS Foundation. How cool is that? Additionally, Fashion for Good joined in with a ticket showing their support for us as innovators and the industry. And friends and families supporting us with private investments as well. Thank you all.

A team of scalemakers

Last but definitely not least, this endeavor requires extraordinary hard-working talent at Syre and among our partners. At Syre, our team now includes three former CEOs, two professors ,four PhDs, and key employees from brands such as AllBirds, Bestseller, H&M, Rodebjer and Adidas and from tech companies like Klarna, Spotify, and Northvolt. The team is further strengthened by skill-sets from fiber, film production, smaller startups, self-driving cars, and waste management. We also have our Senior Advisor Robert van de Kerkhof from Lenzing and Associate Professor Marco Breu in Vietnam.

With this, we are determined and set out to create a Textile Powerhouse — starting with polyester, the world’s biggest fiber. Explorer Robert Swan once said: “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.”

We at Syre want to give it our all by offering new solutions.

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