Brands Set Decarbonisation Targets and Expect Suppliers to Absorb the Cost

CHT’s PIGMENTURA technology has been presented as a major breakthrough in cost-effective dyeing, with dramatic reductions in water and energy use. If the efficiency gains are that substantial, why has the broader dyeing industry not moved faster towards comparable systems?
Eva Baumann: PIGMENTURA demonstrates that significant reductions in water and energy use are achievable while assuring high product quality. The focus now is on scaling this innovation across different substrates, processes and customer environments in a consistent and robust way.

As with any fundamental process innovation, this involves close alignment across the value chain from application and machinery to customer requirements and operational routines. This is exactly where we are seeing strong progress.

For us, this is not a question of whether the technology works. That has been proven already. The question is how it is integrated into existing production systems in a way that ensures stability, reproducibility and long-term value for customers.

The pace of adoption therefore reflects the increasing level of industrial maturity and integration, which is essential for scaling innovations sustainably and successfully across the industry.

Across the industry, many sustainability gains still depend on pilot-scale success stories rather than system-wide adoption. At what point does innovation stop being a technology challenge and become a problem of entrenched sourcing behaviour inside global fashion supply chains?
Eva Baumann: In many parts of the industry, we have already passed that point. The limitation is no longer the availability of technologies – there is a strong pipeline of validated solutions and pilot projects. The real constraint lies in whether the sourcing logic of global value chains is ready to translate these into scale.

Today’s fashion supply chains are still primarily optimized for cost, speed and flexibility. As long as these criteria dominate short term decision-making, innovations that require process change, cross-functional alignment or upfront investment will remain structurally disadvantaged. This makes the barrier less a question of technical feasibility and more one of mid- and long-term strategy and organizational behaviour.

Innovation stops being a technology challenge the moment feasibility is proven but adoption stalls. From that point onwards, success depends on different incentives: long-term sourcing commitments, willingness to absorb transitional costs, and procurement models that value impact alongside price. Without that shift, even the best technologies will remain confined to pilot scale.

CHT has expanded its portfolio of recycled and bio-based chemistries, including products derived from post-consumer and industrial waste streams. How difficult is it to guarantee consistency and performance when the raw material itself comes from fragmented and volatile waste ecosystems? 
Eva Baumann: It is difficult, and it is one of the central industrial challenges of circular chemistry. Once you move from virgin feedstocks to recycled or waste-derived input streams, variability increases and with it the demands on qualification, formulation expertise and process control.

That is why our standard is very clear: sustainability cannot come at the expense of performance reliability. Circular and bio-based solutions only become relevant at scale if they meet the same industrial expectations as conventional products. This primarily depends on the availability of recycled or bio‑based raw materials. However, we do not accept any compromise in quality and consistently require the same specifications and performance standards as conventional, virgin fossil‑based raw materials deliver. This is visible in the way CHT positions products such as TUBINGAL RISE, not simply as recycled solutions, but as solutions designed to deliver equivalent product quality under real application conditions.

So, consistency is achievable, but it requires a more integrated system of raw material qualification, formulation robustness, a high level of chemistry expertise and process discipline.

Textile chemistry suppliers increasingly operate under contradictory pressures: brands demand cleaner chemistry, but mills continue prioritising speed, shade reproducibility, and low processing costs. Which sustainability demands are customers most willing to compromise on once production realities intervene?
Eva Baumann: Customers are understandably unwilling to compromise on production stability. Shade reproducibility, process speed and operational reliability are not negotiable in industrial environments – and neither should they be.

This is exactly where we focus our approach. Instead of asking customers to choose between sustainability and performance, we design our solutions so that both reinforce each other. That means: formulations and process solutions that improve resource efficiency while maintaining or even enhancing process stability, product quality and throughput.

In practice, this translates into solutions that simplify processing, reduce water and energy consumption, or increase consistency in production without adding complexity. As a result, sustainability is no longer an additional requirement, but part of a more efficient and robust process setup.

By aligning ecological benefits with tangible operational value, we remove the need for trade-offs. This is what turns individual improvements into scalable solutions, because adoption no longer depends on willingness to compromise, but on clear business and process advantages.

Fashion brands often present decarbonisation and circularity targets as shared industry responsibilities, yet much of the operational burden falls on suppliers and chemical manufacturers. Has sustainability effectively become a downstream cost-transfer mechanism imposed on the supply chain?
Eva Baumann: Brands are setting clear ambitions and driving sustainability forward across the industry, while mills, processors and upstream solution providers play a crucial role in translating these ambitions into scalable, industrial reality: from cleaner chemistry and traceability to emissions reduction and compliance readiness.

This shared responsibility highlights how interconnected the value chain has become. As requirements evolve, so does the need for closer alignment between sourcing decisions and technical implementation. When both sides move in sync, sustainability can be integrated more effectively into day-to-day operations.

Our approach is to focus on solutions that deliver tangible value in real production environments by improving efficiency, increasing process stability, and supporting compliance. That way, sustainability is directly linked to operational performance, not treated as a separate requirement.

This is what enables scale. When solutions fit naturally into existing processes and create clear benefits, they are adopted more quickly and consistently across the value chain.

Ultimately, broader transformation depends on this kind of alignment: where sustainability goals and day-to-day business decisions point in the same direction, and where all partners in the value chain can contribute in a practical and economically viable way.

The textile industry continues to promote circularity even though fibre blends, chemical finishes, coatings, and performance treatments make large-scale recycling extraordinarily difficult. Does the sector understate the extent to which modern textile performance itself works against circularity?
Eva Baumann: Circularity is often treated as a recycling challenge, but in reality, it is primarily a design challenge. Key decisions are made much earlier, in how materials are selected, how products are constructed and how performance requirements are defined. If end-of-life considerations are not built in at that stage, they are very difficult to address later.

This is where the real tension lies: performance and circularity do not automatically reinforce each other. They need to be deliberately aligned from the outset.

The most effective approaches are therefore those that manage this trade-off upfront rather than trying to resolve it at the end of the lifecycle.

CHT has committed to long-term emissions reductions across Scope 1, 2, and 3 categories. Given the fragmented structure of global textile production, what parts of those commitments depend less on CHT’s own actions and more on whether brands abandon the industry’s current purchasing model altogether?
Eva Baumann: Our complete Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions are clearly within our own sphere of influence. That includes energy efficiency, operational improvements, site investments, renewable electricity and better control of production-related emissions. These are areas where we can act directly and where we have set clear targets.

Scope 3 is fundamentally different. Nevertheless, a substantial portion of these emissions is tied to the chemistry used in producing our products. This is where our customers, particularly in the textile industry, play a critical role in the overall impact.

In a fragmented global textile system, Scope 3 progress depends not only on our own portfolio and supplier management, but also on raw material availability, customer adoption of lower-impact processes, and the economic conditions under which more sustainable solutions can be sourced and scaled.

So, the honest answer is that a meaningful portion of Scope 3 emissions depends on system behaviour across the value chain. We can steer our portfolio, work with suppliers and support customers with better solutions. But if purchasing decisions continue to prioritize short-term cost above all else, supplier-side decarbonization will remain slower and harder to achieve our climate reduction target at scale.