From Farm to Fashion: Transforming Agricultural Waste into a Sustainable Leather Alternative

Cellulose the most abundant biopolymers found in nature. Its use is now transitioning from sustainability-focused development to provide technical solutions across a wide range of applications. (Science Direct -- Christian Gauss, Kim L.Pickering, Lakshmi Priya Muthe, 2021) Its uses are being researched all over the world. In the Netherlands, Germany, Scandinavia, Finland, India, and the US multiple companies both on the supply side and product side are discovering the many uses of cellulose, including processing agricultural waste into woven textiles, microfibrillated cellulose, Ioncell (a less resource intense version of Lyocell), structural color and sequins.

Here in the UK, Biophilica has developed Treekind(R), the first European, 100% plant-derived leather alternative. It is completely free of plastics, and compostable and recyclable. We make it with lignocellulose from green, agricultural, and agroforestry waste. There is 6 million tonnes of green waste in the UK, 800 million globally, plus 5.5 million tons of green waste in the UK. It is important to find uses for this abundant resource, to enable carbon sequestration.

Treekind(R) has undergone 3 years of R&D, developing our material into a robust, versatile leather alternative with multiple applications. We have ISO tested it and built partnerships with research institutions, sustainability networks, and industry leading brands. Biophilica is part of the Fashion For Good Accelerator and the Sustainable Accelerator and has raised private funding. During this time, we have built strong brand awareness and market interest.

In this project, we will work with Minor Weir & Willis to assess their green and agricultural waste volumes, create Treekind(R) samples from different feedstock, and explore continuous production in pilots, to turn agricultural waste feedstocks into valuable commodities.