A Warning from Lyocell
Something interesting is happening in the lyocell world right now, and there are lessons in it for where next generation materials may be heading.
Demand is growing, capacity is expanding, and lyocell is increasingly being treated as one of the more established alternatives in the fibre market. At the same time, factories are closing in Europe and production is shifting towards places where the economics look very different.
My latest piece for Ecotextile News looks at this changing landscape and why lyocell may offer a useful glimpse into the much harder question facing next generation materials: not simply whether they can scale, but what happens to them once they do.
Read the full piece here: When lyocell’s success closes its factories
Having worked on lyocell technically and commercially since 1995 (I finished in 2023, my overriding emotion about the situation is sadness and anger. In my opinion, when Lenzing bought TENCEL there was huge potential, given the long standing experience of both companies. However, this opportunity was frittered away through gross mismanagement commercially and the “not-invented-here” attitude of the R&D headquarter function.