Coats, the world’s leading manufacturer of thread and structural components for apparel and footwear, have inaugurated a sustainability hub at their heritage production site in Madurai. During the inauguration, Rajiv Sharma, Group CEO, Coats, explained in detail on how the company has constantly been reinventing itself, delivering world-class products and how Coats plan on achieving sustainability together with its shareholders, reports Nithin Kumar
Coats has officially opened a new state-of-the-art sustainability hub – a spinning and twisting pilot plant in Madurai, India to further progress its sustainability commitment. The new sustainability hub was inaugurated by Rajiv Sharma, Group CEO, Coats, alongside Adrian Elliot, Divisional CEO (Apparel), Coats; Philip Sydenham, First Secretary, British High Commission; Priyanka Khanna, Fashion For Good; Arvind Mathur, Raymond UCO Denim; and Naresh Tyagi, Chief Sustainability Officer, Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail Ltd.
The new hub in Madurai will sit alongside the sustainability hub in Shenzhen, China, accelerating the material transition to recycled and renewable materials. The two hubs will work together to innovate new generation materials for sustainable sewing threads for apparel, footwear and performance materials. This material transition journey is fundamental to the delivery of Coats’ emissions reduction targets. The Madurai hub will support customers and other stakeholders in creating sustainability in the industry, enabling Coats to streamline sustainability innovation, enhance brand collaborations and facilitate faster sustainable product offers and market entry capabilities.
Long-Term Vision
The hub is part of a USD 10 million investment planned over the next five years in scaling up the development of green technologies and materials to accelerate the achievement of Coats’ ambitious sustainability targets. Over the last four years, Coats has achieved strong progress against ambitious targets in the areas of energy, materials, water, waste and people. Coats have now announced new targets for 2026 across the same material areas and these provide the next horizon towards its 2030 commitments. Emissions reduction across the company’s entire value chain is at the heart of these new targets.
Sustainability and Coats: Deep Understanding
In an interaction with Rajiv Sharma during the event, he shared, “The DNA of the company is doing the right thing, being sustainable and making sure that the impact is felt on society beyond just profits for the company. The impact we have on the environment and how we are helping our employees and their families in terms of re-skilling, getting a livelihood and progressing in life is important. So, that’s one thing that we are really proud of.”
Coats have sailed through its sustainability targets for 2022, which was set a few years back, even without the effect of the pandemic and supply chain issues impacting the process. “In late 2021 at the COP 26 in Glasgow, we were invited as special invitees and we unveiled our new board and essentially declared that by 2030 we will reduce our emissions by 50% across our entire global supply chain, and by 2050 we will get to the net zero status.” Essentially, de-carbonising the company’s production and supply chain is a massive task. How does Coats plan to achieve 50% reduction in the next 7-8 years?
The answer is material transition. “Historically, 95% of the raw materials and dyes and chemicals that we use in manufacturing are oil-based. We are dependent on oil for generating polyester nylon dyes, chemicals and other exotic materials that we use in a manufacturing. So, we need to move away from new oil extraction and by 2030 everything we make in Coats will be either way through recycled material or from renewable materials,” shared Rajiv. That is where the new hub will play a key role.
Alongside its customers, Coats will use the Madurai hub to experiment with new ‘vegan’, recycled materials, which will be sent to the clients for testing and approval, after which mass production will begin. So, with the company moving away from oil-based materials and the efforts to increase the energy consumption from renewable sources to 70%, this will help cut emissions by 50% for the company. That’s the massive challenge that Coats have strongly taken on and will achieve soon.
Epic Recycled Polyester
Epic is one of the most premium products from the company. However, the company only had two suppliers of recycled polyester back in 2019 when they started and generated USD 2 million of sales. “We worked very hard to develop and build suppliers across the world. I am pleased to say that as of 2022 we had 21 qualified suppliers. We did about USD 128 million dollars of sales of recycled polyester thread last year. So, from USD 2 million in 2019 to USD 128 million was a big leap. And we want to get to about USD 400 million next year,” shared Rajiv on the massive revenue increase through recycled polyester.
Taking the Lead
“We have decided as a company that we are going to take the lowest profits in the short term but make sure that we lead this material transition in the industry. So, being a global leader in sewing threads we think that it is a big responsibility on our part to lead in this transition and help everyone else to move up the full chain,” said Rajiv. This also helps as some of the global brands that work with Coats look for suppliers who provide sustainable or recyclable materials in order to achieve their sustainability targets.
Encouraging Start-Ups
Coats, last year, announced a fund of USD 10 million to encourage start-ups, universities and industry partners to scale up technologies and materials that can be relevant to the textile industry, primarily threads. Likewise, the field of textile dyeing is very resource-intensive. It consumes a lot of water, electricity and chemicals and is very labour-intensive too. So, the company has invested in Twine, an Israeli start-up, for waterless dyeing. “One kilogram of thread takes 150 litres of water. We make enough thread to go to the moon and come back in every three hours. A pair of jeans takes 700 litres of water. Everyone is now focused on reducing water intake and you will see technological breakthroughs in the textile industry in the next three years,” Rajiv informed while explaining need to reduce water consumption in the industry.
He continued, “Coats in the last four years has reduced water consumption by 40%. We want to invest in new technologies where you don’t need water at all. Thus, at present the answer to less water consumption lies in less dyeing. We are also working with universities across the world in the US, Japan, China and India. We are trying to get the best brains from across the world to help us and aid our industry to come up with these things because we think that it is important for the world and we think it’s the right thing to do. We are pushing really hard to achieve these milestones.”
About Coats
Coats are a world leader in thread manufacturing and structural components for apparel and footwear as well as an innovative pioneer in performance materials. These critical solutions are used to create a wide range of products, including ones that provide safety and protection for people, data, and the environment. Headquartered in the UK, Coats is a FTSE 250 company and an FTSE 4 Good Index constituent. Its revenues in 2022 were to the tune of USD 1.6 billion. Trusted by the world’s leading companies to deliver vital, innovative and sustainable solutions, Coats provides value-adding products including apparel, accessory and footwear threads, structural components for footwear and accessories, fabrics, yarns and software applications.
Its customer partners include companies from the apparel, footwear, automotive, telecom, personal protection and outdoor goods industries. With a proud heritage dating back more than 250 years and spirit of evolution to constantly stay ahead of changing market needs, Coats has operations across some 50 countries with a workforce of over 17,000, serving its customers worldwide. The company connects talent, textiles and technology to create a better and more sustainable world. Worldwide, there are three dedicated Coats’ innovation hubs where experts collaborate with partners to create the materials and products of tomorrow. The company is also committed to achieving its goals in diversity, equity and inclusion, workplace health and safety, employee and community wellbeing, and supplier social performance.