Recycled cotton company Recover raises $100M in funding led by Goldman Sachs
Summary
None Recover, which creates recycled cotton fibers and blends for new apparel from textile waste, intends to use this investment for global expansion and increased production capacity. None Recover is a leading disruptor in the apparel and textiles space with much-needed sustainable solutions grounded in materials science. Were excited to invest in Recovers growth to accelerate scaled production and the continued development of its technologies, Letitia Webster, managing director and chief sustainability officer of Goldman Sachs Asset Management Division, said in a statement.Goldman Sachs investment shows the increasing interest in dealing with a large environmental problem post-industrial and post-consumer textile waste from the fashion industry while still creating a way for businesses to produce.Textile waste in the U.S. largely comes from discarded clothing, with around 11 million tons of textile waste put into landfills in 2018 alone, according to data by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Textile production is estimated to release around 1.2 billion metric tons (about 1.3 billion U.S. tons) of greenhouse gas emissions per year, according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.Recover uses some of that textile waste to create a proprietary cotton fiber and fiber blend, resulting in a more circular system. The RealReal, Rent the Runway, Fashionphile and others are part of a new organization called the American Circular Textiles policy group, seeking to tackle textile waste and reuse, according to Womens Wear Daily.The retail industry is inherently bad for the environment, and creating a more sustainable system isnt easy.