Zara-owner Inditex, the Spanish clothing retailer, has committed to buy recycled polyester from a Los Angeles based material science company, in partnership with Ambercycle, with the aim to help scale textile to textile recycled polyester. As part of this collaboration, the company has signed a three-year agreement to buy a significant portion of the annual production of cycora, an innovative material made from post-industrial and post-consumer polyester waste, for more than 70 million euros.

The Inditex investment will support the construction of Ambercycle’s first commercial-scale textile regeneration factory. The scaled application of Ambercycle's innovative molecular regeneration technology will make circular materials more widely available and accessible in the fashion supply chain. Production of cycora at Ambercycle’s new commercial plant is expected to begin around 2025 and continue to be incorporated in Inditex product offerings over the following three years.

Inditex aims to have 100% of its textile products to be made exclusively from materials with a smaller environmental footprint by 2030. As part of this commitment, the Group expect to have 25% of the textile fibers made from next-generation materials that do not yet exist at an industrial scale.

Zara Athleticz launched on Oct. 25 its first capsule collection in collaboration with Ambercycle, featuring technical pieces crafted with up to 50% cycora® content. It exemplifies the immense potential of innovative materials to create highly functional stylish products with lower environmental impact. The collection will be available at Zara.com.

"Ambercycle’s goal is to enable circularity by replacing virgin polyester with textile-to-textile regenerated cycora®. Our partnership with Inditex represents a monumental leap towards realizing circularity at scale in the fashion industry" said Shay Sethi, ceo of Ambercycle.

"At Inditex we are committed to achieving circularity in the fashion industry. We want to drive innovation to scale up new solutions, processes and materials to achieve textile to textile recycling. Ambercycle’s groundbreaking molecular regeneration technology transforms end-of-life textiles into new materials, effectively reducing waste and emissions in the production cycle," added Javier Losada, Inditex’s chief sustainability officer.

Courtesy image of Inditex