The Society of Dyers and Colourists (SDC) is urging the textile coloration industry to take advantage of technological advancements to usher in a new era of lower environmental impact in 2022 and beyond.

To summarise outstanding practice and encourage the wider sector, the textile coloration industry's voice has issued a free downloadable white paper, Destination low carbon: Global technology and innovation decreasing the environmental impact of textile coloration.

Six case studies from the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Sweden, and Germany describe methods that have been created and established in recent years as well as brand-new innovation, including: Technologies to optimize automaton across processes and machinery; Use of local agricultural waste to create clean dyes, and micro-organisms to synthesize colors of nature — negating the need for petrochemical; and Advancements to significantly reduce volumes of water, energy, and dyestuff required in processes.

The innovations on display are among many that are helping to move the dyeing industry beyond its resource-intensive and environmentally damaging past by combining education and experience to drive research and development.

In response to members' interests and concerns in this area, the SDC is increasingly taking a global lead in encouraging and promoting environmental good practice – as well as providing the educational base that makes it possible.

Andrew Filarowski, technical director of the SDC, said that they have the technological potential to establish a new era for their sector, and their white paper is fuel for essential, urgent discourse. They know that many businesses are already investing in better practices and methods for achieving circularity, and this is significant progress. However, much more has to be done to mainstream this burgeoning new century.

The SDC is encouraging its network and the dyeing and coloring industry as a whole to use the white paper to help create and implement carbon-cutting innovations across the board.

Filarowski added that this paper provides a variety of ideas and inspiration for dyehouses, print works, and laboratories keen to plan production and run processes more effectively, and report clearly on numerous metrics. It is not too late to start for organizations with a lot of room for improvement. Every constructive initiative to reduce carbon, water use, or effluent discharge — and indeed all three — counts toward the sector's brighter, greener future in 2022 and beyond.