The release of the new Pace Collection is a significant moment in Swiss sportswear brand On’s journey to move away from petroleum-based resources after creating a new material called CleanCloud, made using carbon emissions as a raw material.
With CleanCloud, On aims to move the industry away from fossil-based raw materials to reduce reliance on limited resources. The launch of the Pace Collection follows the announcement of the first-ever shoe made from carbon emissions, Cloudprime, in collaboration with LanzaTech in September last year.
On’s ambitions are high: the brand envisions a future where every On product is fossil-free and circular. CleanCloud is the result of five years of dedicated work that started with finding the best possible partners. This collaborative approach is key to overcoming the challenges of developing this complex technology at a commercial scale.
This is how it works
LanzaTech equips industrial facilities like steel mills with bioreactor hardware that captures carbon-rich gases at the source before they can be released into the atmosphere. Inside the bioreactor, specially selected and naturally occurring bacteria consume the waste carbon to produce more sustainable versions of widely-used chemical building blocks through a proprietary fermentation process that is similar to conventional alcohol production, e.g., beer brewing. In this case, ethanol was produced in the bioreactors, which was then dehydrated to become ethylene gas and turned into monoethylene glycol (MEG). Afterwards, the MEG is polymerized with purified terephthalic acid (PTA) into the final polyester. This polyester is extruded into a yarn engineered into On’s CleanCloud apparel fabric.
The Pace Collection comprises eight apparel items. The limited-availability pre-launch collection is available on www.on.com and at retail partners NetAPorter and Mr.Porter.
