Sustainability is no longer a trend; it’s a necessity. And PrimaLoft is leading the way with high-performance material innovations.

PrimaLoft specializes in developing high-performance synthetic insulations and fabrics, working with over 950 brands worldwide. Since the very beginning, PrimaLoft’s business has been rooted in three pillars: Performance, sustainability, and innovation. PrimaLoft engineers constantly develop new technologies that raise the bar for thermal performance, while also looking at the entire life of a product for ways to reduce impact at every step. In recent years, the company has introduced several breakthrough innovations that have the potential to change the textile industry.

Product journey reduces footprint

PrimaLoft is deeply focused on reducing impact throughout a product’s journey, through the continued use of recycled materials, aggressive carbon reduction, production of durable products, combating microplastic & waste issues, and designing for circularity.

Reuse

PrimaLoft began using post-consumer recycled (PCR) content back in 1997, well before the industry was ready to embrace the practice. Since 2015, PrimaLoft has saved more than 692 million water bottles from entering landfills or ocean waters and transformed them into high performance fibers. The company aims to move away from virgin polyester entirely while maintaining the same industry-leading performance. However, recycling is not the end goal – it’s just the start of a journey.

Decarbonization

In recent years, PrimaLoft has made important strides towards decarbonization through concerted efforts in all major aspects of the business. The use of recycled materials instead of virgin polyester can reduce the carbon footprint by 43%. In 2019, PrimaLoft launched a breakthrough technology aimed at disrupting the traditional manufacturing process. With PrimaLoft® P.U.R.E.™, which stands for Produced Using Reduced Emissions, technical engineers have reduced the carbon emissions produced during the manufacturing of synthetic insulation by up to 70%.

Durability

PrimaLoft is committed to manufacturing products that last a lifetime, or even generations, creating garments that can be reused, repaired, and passed on to other users. All PrimaLoft products are highly durable, enabling them to maintain their high level of performance for many years. Using highly durable materials extends the usable life of garments and can therefore lessen their potential impact on the environment.

Combating microplastics

Microplastics are a significant environmental issue, and textile waste is a considerable contributor. According to a UN Environment report, approximately 30% of microfibers in the oceans are from textiles. To do its part to combat this issue, PrimaLoft developed PrimaLoft® Bio™, the first-ever technology that uses 100% recycled content and enables synthetic insulation and fabric fibers to return to materials found in nature. Highly durable and built to last, the high-performance fibers only break down when exposed to specific environments like marine, wastewater, and landfill – reducing the long-term impact of microplastics in those environments.

Circularity

The textile industry is working towards the goal of implementing circular systems that enable products to be recycled into the same quality products, without needing new resources. Chemical recycling is a promising solution to help accelerate change, whereby material is broken down to its basic components. This maintains their integrity, so that it can be rejuvenated into new high-performance material, repeatedly. Through third-party testing, nearly all PrimaLoft® fibers have been proven renewable in a circular economy, via chemical recycling. As the industry continues to make progress towards circular systems, PrimaLoft is prepared.

 

primaloft.com

 

Photo: PrimaLoft