A Canada-based non-profit has received $60 million from a funding initiative to scale up low-impact and circular clothing, paper, and packaging solutions that will eliminate the use of ancient and endangered forests from the supply chains of those industries, it announced Monday.
Canopy will receive the funds from the Audacious Project, a collaborative funding initiative hosted by TED that every year picks out a group of potentially transformative activities, and funds them.
“We are very proud to be included in this year’s group of Audacious grantees and believe that Canopy’s creative, collaborative, and transformative work will be key in driving supply chain change at scale and, in turn, provide a reprieve to critical forests that are under current and future threats, within the next decade and beyond,” Nicole Rycroft, Canopy founder and executive director, said in the announcement.
With the funds, Canopy plans to accelerate the commercial-scale production next-gen packaging solutions, using waste textile and waste food scraps – which normally gets dumped in landfills – as well as agricultural residues, usually burned, instead of pulp.
The company said it aims to unlock 60 million tonnes of low-carbon next-gen fibre production over the next decade, which will have huge biodiversity and climate change benefits, including over 1.3 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions, and completely eliminate the use of ancient and endangered forests in the paper, packaging, and fashion viscose supply chains.
Over 5 billion trees are cut down annually to produce fabrics for those industries, many of them from the world’s oldest and most carbon- and biodiversity-rich forests.
“Moving towards more sustainable alternatives for our materials and packaging plays a crucial role in our journey towards circularity,” said Leyla Ertur, head of sustainability at H&M Group, one of hundreds of companies across several industries that have partnered with Canopy on various issues.
“Together with Canopy and other industry leaders, we want to use our size and scale to continue driving demand for low-carbon material solutions while building scalability faster,” she added.
By Stian Reklev – stian@carbon-pulse.com
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