As one of the business’s largest manufacturers, Puma is focusing heavily on changing its manufacturing to include more sustainable production. The German company has recently adjusted its climate target for 2030.
Regarding the use of new materials, Puma’s revised targets for 2030 say that 30 percent of the polyester fabric it uses will be fiber-to-fiber recycled, while 20 percent of its cotton fabric will also be sourced from recycled materials. The company also seeks to cut 90 percent of its absolute Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Together with On Running, Patagonia, PVH and Salomon, Puma is part of the multi-brand consortium that has unveiled the world’s first piece of clothing (a white T-shirt) made entirely from textile waste with a new biorecycling technology developed by French company Carbios.
But there are still big steps to take. Sustainability initiatives from a company of Puma’s size can have a significant impact and lead the way for others, notably the other major players in the sporting goods industry producing millions of pieces of clothing and footwear every season. SGI Europe got hold of Howard Williams, Director of Global Innovation Apparel & Accessories at Puma, to find out how the company is making its production more sustainable.
SGI Europe: This initiative began with one T-shirt. When will Puma start upcycling this, and which garments will the upcycling include?
Williams: The next step for us is to scale-up this technology. The test shows that the technology can handle mixed and colored textile waste, which is an essential milestone in fiber-to-fiber recycling. We must tackle several challenges when upscaling this technology, including securing a steady stream of recyclable material. We will continue to work with Carbios and our industry peers in the consortium to make this happen.
What is Puma’s plan, particularly with this green initiative? How much of your total garment production do you wish to be from Carbios?
We want to steadily increase the number of recycled fibers from textiles instead of PET bottles. We have already made significant steps with our Re:Fibre project and produced millions of football jerseys this year from textile waste. We will announce our new circularity targets very soon.
Are you looking into other fiber-to-fiber providers for other production, like Syre, for instance?
Yes. Carbios is a technology that we find very promising, but as part of our Re:Fibre project, we have already used other forms of chemical recycling as well.
When will Puma have more recycled polyester garments than the one from virgin polyester?
In 2023, almost 65 percent of the polyester used for our apparel and accessories came from recycled materials. Much of that was from PET bottles, so the issue is not recycled versus virgin polyester but the sources of this recycled polyester, which we want to shift towards textile waste in the coming years.
When will Puma be a carbon-neutral company?
We’ve already reduced our own absolute greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent [market-based] compared to our 2017 baseline, and the emissions for our supply chain by 65 percent relative to sales. With these reductions, we achieved our first science-based climate target in 2023, seven years ahead of plan. As part of our partnership with the UN-led Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action, we’ve committed to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. We are actively working on our climate action strategy and have set a new science-based target to reduce our own emissions by 90 percent and those of our supply chain by 33 percent by 2030.
