Move 100% of premium threads to fully recycled products by 2024
Headquartered in the UK, Coats is the world’s leading industrial thread company. Fibre2Fashion spoke to V Jaigopal, Managing Director of Coats, to understand how the textile industry is poised to grow in the next 5-10 years, the competitive advantages Coats has over other industry players and its commitment to set science-based emissions reduction targets across its entire value chain.
What’s your take on the textile industry’s growth world over in 2021 and in the next 5-10 years horizon?
While Covid has been hugely disruptive and there are ongoing second waves in many regions, we see enough green shoots around the world which point to a revival. Apparel retail sales in Europe in May and June have exceeded expectations. Many footwear and home textiles majors are reporting strong growth. India showed a major bounce back in Jan-March 21 before the second wave hit. My view is that we are likely to see a release of pent-up demand when markets open as infection rates decrease. With vaccination programmes gaining traction, there is reasonable hope that the pandemic will become an endemic which will have to be managed on an ongoing basis. After a short-term surge, we expect to see growth at a more temperate level with the US and Europe at low single percentage digits and India and China at a much higher level.
We also see strong growth for applications other than clothing – home textiles is already trending. Medical and protective wear requirements will only increase and the need for lightweight solutions will drive usage of textiles as an alternate to other materials in automotive and industrial applications.
At the same time, the market will continue to be volatile – lockdowns continue, supply chains are yet to be fully restored and the global freight situation is still disturbed. Also, new trends are emerging. There is a definite shift from formal wear to athleisure and e-commerce will continue to accelerate. Companies that ride this change will outperform competitors and the industry.
How has your business been impacted by the pandemic? Is the industry back on track as pre-Covid times?
Coats released a trading update earlier this week which included sales growth of 34 per cent year on year and 1 per cent over 2019. Growth was visible across apparel and footwear and various performance materials segments.
If there was no lockdown in India, growth could have been even higher at 3 per cent over 2019. The Indian business which I look after was heavily impacted by the second wave of Covid in May and June, but we do see positive sentiment returning to most geographies and the onset of the festival season from August should aid this further. Exports from India have been doing reasonably well even in this period.
Has supply chain become of bigger importance than earlier given continuous disruptions due to Covid? Are there certain out of the box contingency planning measures incorporated to ensure customer supply is not disrupted?
While nobody anticipated Covid, we have always been trying to increase our resilience and agility. The cloud technology we deployed gave us the ability to have 4,000 employees work from home, almost overnight. We continue our factory of the future roadmap. We deployed Intenseye, an artificial Intelligence software which leverages our camera network and machine-learning to keep employees safe and socially distanced.
We also have advanced supply chain tools which help us anticipate and respond to customer requirements across a vast range of products. To this, we have added some agile processes to react better to changing trends without excessive inventory.
We also took great care to ensure resilience of our warehousing and distribution network, key vendors, and service providers by including them in our Covid related actions.
What are the competitive advantages of Coats over some of the other leading brands which have helped Coats stand in good stead? Is it quality, speed of delivery, innovation, or any other aspect?
Our strategic pillars are digital, innovation and sustainability.
Even before the pandemic over 80 per cent of customer orders were placed digitally which helped us hugely during the disruption. We have also developed an array of customer facing digital tools including mobile applications, colour matching, sampling, technical service offerings, customer contact and demand activation programmes using digital means.
While there is a strong trend to casual apparel, these garments are getting more technical with requirements like high stretch, next to skin comfort, embroidery, and special finishes. We create innovative solutions and offer many smart thread and yarns to enhance the functionality or performance of products.
Sustainability has long been at the core of how we do business and is a key driver of our strategic decisions. Not only does it give us a competitive advantage, but also allows us to help our customers with their own sustainability agendas.
Sustainability and circularity are important aspects of textile industry and SMEs across the world believe that the industry is ready to take the next leap now. How does Coats plan to incorporate sustainability? Do you have an ambition to supply a certain percentage of industry’s threads and yarns?
We launched our sustainability strategy ‘Pioneering a sustainable future’ in 2019 with aggressive targets to reduce water use by 40 per cent, energy by 7 per cent, move to zero discharge of hazardous chemicals and acquire GPTW certifications for all key sites by 2022. We will also move 100 per cent of our premium threads to fully recycled products by 2024. Despite the Covid disruption we remain committed to these timelines. We already have GPTW certification in Brazil, China, and Sri Lanka; last month we secured this in India also.
Further, we have committed to set science-based emissions reduction targets across the entire value chain that are consistent with keeping global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. We have committed to develop a long-term target to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, the highest level of ambition on climate under the science-based target initiative.
In addition, we have become a member of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the leading proponent of the idea of circular economies which aligns closely with Coats’s objectives to develop products and processes that are compatible with this.
In terms of sustainable product development, we recently launched EcoRegen, a biodegradable thread which supports customers’ sustainability goals. Coats EcoRegen is made from 100 per cent lyocell, a renewable fibre derived from wood pulp sourced from sustainably managed forests. This eco-friendly regenerated fibre is fully biodegradable and compostable due to its cellulosic origin and is suitable for a wide range of apparel applications to accommodate multiple customer needs.
The launch of EcoRegen is part of our eco journey roadmap to produce innovative sustainable products which support Coats’s drive towards a circular economy. This journey started with EcoVerde in 2018, which is now one of the most comprehensive ranges of 100 per cent recycled polyester threads, zips and trims on the market.
There are further two new products which will be launched soon: EcoCycle is a range of water dissolvable thread that facilitates garment recycling and end to end circularity; and Eco-B is a recycled polyester thread incorporating an additive which reduces synthetic fibre accumulation in landfills and microfibre pollution in oceans.
Any new collaborations and announcements in pipeline?
In recent years, we have acquired a range of companies in the highly engineered performance materials space specialising in telecom and personal protection as well as software solutions for the apparel and footwear industry, which comes under our Coats Digital business. We continue to identify strategic acquisitions that would build scale, principally in these areas. (PC)
Published on: 20/07/2021
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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