Sustainable

Clarion Events North America, Inc. announced today that a collaboration agreement has been signed with the Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI) regarding Clarion’s annual ExpoProducción event in Mexico City. The collaboration will include an IFAI Pavilion and Conference to be held within the annual ExpoProducción trade show in Mexico City beginning with the February 2014 edition.

In line with Techtextil trade fair motto ‘Innovations for Life’, Groz-Beckert will be presenting what it calls practice-oriented innovative applications with a focus on technical textiles for the automotive industry, at this year’s show. The leading German manufacturer of needles, parts and fine tools will be showing in hall 3.0 at booth F03 at this year’s show which takes place from 11-13 June in Frankfurt.

Perspectives by Bill Smith - a new regular column for Innovation in Textiles. When I began my consulting practice in 1986, I discovered a book called “Innovation – The Attackers Advantage” (Summit Books) by Richard Foster, then a Director of the major consulting firm McKinsey & Co. His message: ” . . . companies must return to the attack . . . the annals of business is filled with . . . companies that seemed profitable yet were in the midst of bankruptcy because they did not anticipate when their present products would become unprofitable and underestimated the strengths of their competitor’s attacks.”

Despite having only really emerged since the 1940s, the value of the worldwide composites market is now estimated to be worth an annual €77 billion and to account for around 550,000 jobs worldwide.

Procter & Gamble, the company behind consumer brands including Pampers, Gillette, Ariel and Tide has announced that 45 of its facilities have now achieved zero manufacturing waste to landfill, which marks a major step towards the company’s long-term vision of sending zero manufacturing and consumer waste to landfills. P&G says that over the past 5 years its work to find worth in waste has created over $1 billion in value for the company.

The Dornbirn-Man-Made Fibers Congress (MFC), the leading conference for the man-made fibres industry, will take place for the 52nd time in Dornbirn, Austria from 11-13 September 2013, where over 100 papers will address key industry issues under the banner - ‘Communicating the Future of Man-Made Fibers’.

Horticulture in the Netherlands is big business. Not only is the country an international leader in flowers, plants, bulbs, and food products; it is also in innovator in solutions for greenhouse horticulture. According to the NL Agency, a division of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Dutch greenhouses cover an area of more than 10560 km2, with a focus on technologies that facilitate energy efficiency and adaptability to climate change. A new Netherlands-based company called Elasol, established in 2012, has developed one such technology that uses an innovative elastic, warp-knit textile in an intelligent system to help balance sunlight, shade, temperature and humidity.

Cesare Citterio, textiles entrepreneur and owner of Cifra SpA, a world leader in the field of seamlessly knitted garments, is a man on a mission – a warp knitting seamless mission - or as Citterio likes to call it a ‘WKS’ mission.

Teijin is to establish a specialized department to accelerate materials business incubation through technology acquisitions and alliances with immediate effect. The new Technology Alliance Development Department, established under Teijin’s New Business Development Group, will strategically grow materials related businesses by identifying promising partners and mergers and acquisitions opportunities. Alliances are envisioned for undertakings ranging from R&D to business model creation.

Nominations are open for the 2013 World of Wipes Innovation Award, which recognizes and rewards innovation within the entire wipes value chain that utilizes nonwoven fabrics in a way that expands the usage of nonwovens.