Photograph by David Avazzadeh / Connected Archives
Words by Lauren Cochrane
The facts around carbon emissions and fashion make for grim reading. The industry accounts for around 4% of all carbon emissions, according to a United Nations report published in 2022—more than aviation and shipping combined. But the shocking statistic is often one largely ignored by brands, which continue to churn out new products that drive that number even higher.
However, there is one small corner of the industry thinking differently about fashion’s relationship with carbon. With a common goal of turning products into “carbon sinks,” a new generation of innovative designers and brands are working with carbon-recycling specialists to harvest carbon straight from industrial polluters, extracting it from other toxic gases, and repurpose it into new materials. This sci-fi-style technology was traditionally used to lock carbon into concrete. The latest idea? Walking on it—literally—as the soles of your shoes.
Enter CleanCloud, a groundbreaking sneaker midsole developed by On Running. Over several years, the Swiss brand joined forces with specialists in carbon recycling, renewable plastics, and manufacturing to create a revolutionary material made with 20% recycled pollution. Producing the sole of the shoe required capturing carbon and fermenting it into ethanol before dehydrating and polymerizing it with vinyl acetate to form a lightweight material commonly used for sneakers called EVA.
At a cost of $500,000 per prototype, CleanCloud remains at the experimental stage. But the goal is clear: to make carbon-positive sneakers at prices the majority can afford. “We can see that someday everything in our daily lives will come from recycled carbon,” said Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of carbon recycling firm and On Running partner LanzaTech. “We are excited to…bend the carbon curve, keep our skies blue, and create a sustainable future for all.”
Groundtruth, a luggage brand founded by sisters Georgia, Nina, and Sophia Scott in 2017, is another company working to push production of accessories in this direction. The hardware on their bags—starting with D-rings and zippers—is now made using recycled plastic embedded with carbon emissions. The patent-pending material, known as GT-OCO-CO2®, is combined with recycled polypropylene or nylon and captured carbon dioxide emissions, which the founders say makes the hardware more durable, too. For Georgia Scott, this approach is integral to the way the brand works: “It goes back to the philosophy with Groundtruth—creating products that last a longer time, even though they’re made from recycled materials,” she said.
Like On’s sneaker sole, the journey to making Groundtruth’s hardware was one of patience and collaboration—this time with Carbon Upcycling Technology, a company based in Canada that previously only worked with concrete. “They were really open because what they’re looking at doing is opening the door wider to the possibilities that the whole carbon capture industry can have,” said Scott.
“If we do not have an honest conversation about the systemic and structural problems in this industry, I fear that the tools and approaches proposed will not only legitimize overproduction and overconsumption but will perpetuate the intergenerational social and environmental problems we all face.”
Groundtruth currently sources carbon emissions from Canadian factories for its bag components, but the next step is to use emissions from around its production hub in Jakarta on all its bags. “Maybe in two years’ time, the whole product will be acting as a carbon sink, not just the components,” said Scott, whose next focus is on storing carbon in the yarns used to make the bags. “It’s hard work, and we’re definitely not at the end of the road yet. We’re just the beginning.”
Peter Zhou, product development lead at Carbon Upcycling Technologies, is quick to emphasize that while Groundtruth’s project was a success, the material requirements of fashion present a more complex challenge than concrete when it comes to integrating carbon sinks. “We’ve tried to do some work with big brands like Lululemon,” Zhou told Atmos. “But when you’re developing new materials, it’s very hard to get [the finish] the brands want—where it’s soft, it’s lightweight, it feels nice. Not being able to do that is a first stumbling block of many despite how good—or even cost-neutral—the material is.”
While Scott is keen to distance Groundtruth from the wider fashion industry, some big brands including Zara, H&M, and Nike have produced clothing where 20% of the material is reportedly made using captured carbon emissions through partnerships with either LanzaTech or AirCarbon. Scott’s position is understandable: Rather than a sign of real change, these are one-off projects from companies that are otherwise some of the biggest offenders when it comes to fashion’s carbon footprint.
Even the most advanced innovations, like On’s and Groundtruth’s, are not entirely a solution—at best, only up to 30% of these materials can be carbon sinks. The next step is to find a more sustainable fix for the remaining 70%, which could also be the key to making the technology scalable and cost-effective. Scott agrees—but insists it does help to envision a future where the innovations are widely adopted by brands with big impact. “Can you imagine if North Face or Patagonia started using our formula?” she said. “They would be helping to offset their carbon footprint by quite literally storing the CO2 emissions within the product, not by planting a tree that’s going to die next year.”
Building on the ambition of carbon sinks, some brands are aiming to go carbon negative—using materials that absorb more carbon in production than they emit. Sheep Inc., founded in 2020 by Edzard van der Wyck and Michael Wessely, has made merino wool—specifically, merino produced by regenerative farms in New Zealand—its hero fabric. “These farms toil their land in a way that maximizes carbon sequestration [extraction],” said Wessely. “Every kilogram of wool we sourced had minus 14 kilogram CO2 equivalents, which is essentially a carbon negative starting point.” The sustainability story doesn’t end with the materials. Sheep Inc. knits with solar power and washes its wool in Italy’s first B-Corp-certified textile mill.
“I want to see brands that innovate with a business model that can sustain the natural and social resources we need to protect the planet.”
“We knew that there is so much greenwashing around…each garment that we produce we run through a life cycle assessment,” added Wessely. “They calculate the carbon footprint for each style that we release to independently verify that all of those have a negative carbon footprint.” The company is now scaling up their production and moving into other materials, like hemp and cotton.
None of these innovations come cheap. A Sheep Inc. crewneck costs $320, while a Groundtruth backpack can run up to $395. But Wessely argues long-lasting design makes them a worthwhile investment—one that more citizens are prioritizing. “I think the modern consumer will force brands to build longevity into the brand in order to survive, not only for next years, but for next decades,” he said. “They force those brands to rethink [their production process] and look more closely at their source materials.”
Still, some argue that producing better products isn’t the answer—we should stop buying altogether. Technological innovations may reduce impact, but they do nothing to challenge the mindset driving overconsumption. This is partly why Carbon Upcycling Technology doesn’t work with many fashion brands. “Even if we got to 50% captured carbon, the behavior is still the same,” said Zhou. “We would have made a meaningful impact, but from a waste perspective, we’ve done very little.”
As Zhou intimates, while carbon capture is an exciting innovation, there’s an argument that it’s also dangerous precisely because it makes us feel good. The danger is that citizens then continue consuming without pushing for the systemic changes needed to mitigate the climate emergency, thereby delaying climate action and perpetuating labor rights violations.
At the heart of every product are the people who make it—often workers in the Global South where most factories are concentrated and climate change hits hardest. But in the race for technological innovation, these people are too often overlooked. Dr. Hakan Karaosman, associate professor at Cardiff University and the son of a garment worker, focuses his research on these communities and stresses that they must remain central to all discussions around carbon issues and climate solutions.
“If we do not have an honest conversation about the systemic and structural problems in this industry, I fear that the tools and approaches proposed will not only legitimize overproduction and overconsumption but will perpetuate the intergenerational social and environmental problems we all face,” he told Atmos.
Unlike fast fashion brands that keep their workforce invisible, companies like Groundtruth and Sheep Inc. put their workers at the center of their story. But this commitment needs to be industry-wide, Karaosman argued. Real sustainability requires collaboration with the people making the products—and valuing their insights to help build a more planet- and people-friendly industry. That’s the only way forward, new technology or not.
“I want to see brands that innovate with a business model that can sustain the natural and social resources we need to protect the planet,” Karaosman said, instead of pulling carbon we’ve already released into the air into products. “Using ‘sustainable’ materials to overproduce billions of items—which is how I read the industry today—will never be the answer to this crisis.”
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