Lenzing presents Sustainability Report 2017

By

Rüdiger Oberschür

Published
Mar 30, 2018

The Lenzing Group has now published its 2017 Sustainability Report, following record figures for the past year. According to the Austrian fiber specialist, the report underscores the group's ambitions as one of the industry's sustainability leaders in wood-based cellulosic fibers to make an important contribution to greener economies across the textile and nonwovens industry value chain.

"Climate protection and the preservation of forests as CO2 storage are two key issues for the social acceptance of the textile and nonwovens industries. With our exemplary sustainable wood procurement policy, we have contributed to a positive shift in industry in recent years " said CEO Stefan Doboczky.

For Lenzing, the focus is on improving the condition and biodiversity of forests worldwide. The company is relying on a circular economy and environmentally conscious fiber production.

Now it has been decided that specific emissions will be further reduced by 2022. For this purpose, a specially tailored eco-investment program will be implemented. The aim is to have an EU Ecolabel for all sites of the Lenzing Group.

Furthermore, 80 percent of the most important suppliers are to be evaluated by 2022 on the basis of their sustainability performance. By the end of 2019, the introduction of an internationally recognized assessment tool (Higg Facility Environmental Module) should improve transparency and optimise the environmental and social sustainability effects at all production sites of the Lenzing Group.


"We are at the start of the value chain and through our activities and through maximum transparency, especially with partnerships, we can make a lot of improvements," concluded Robert van de Kerkhof.

The aim is to further promote systemic change in the industry, for example by developing environmentally-friendly lyocell fibers and innovative solutions such as the Refibratm technology, which uses a percentage of cotton fabric residues for fiber production.