On unveils debut apparel collection made from carbon emissions

Swiss sportswear brand On, backed by tennis star Roger Federer, has unveiled its first apparel products made from carbon emissions as the brand continues to move away from petroleum-based resources.

The eight-piece ‘Pace’ collection utilises CleanCloud polyester, which is made of 20 percent recycled carbon emissions and follows the brand’s first-ever shoe made of carbon emissions, Cloudprime, in partnership with LanzaTech in September last year.

The autumn/winter 2023 collection for men and women features a range of T-shirts, vests, and shorts and will be available directly through On’s website, as well as its retail partners NetAPorter and Mr Porter.

Begüm Kürkçü, global head of ESG at On, said in a statement: “The apparel Pace Collection is an additional step in our effort to move away from virgin fossil-based materials and offers a sneak peek into the future for the next generation of runners.

“Our CleanCloud polyester is made of 20 percent recycled carbon emissions, replacing the same amount of virgin fossil-based materials and equally reducing carbon emissions by 20 percent compared to virgin polyester. This means less strain on the planet.”

CleanCloud is the result of a supply chain partnership with biochemicals, process, and material company LanzaTech, which uses a combination of cutting-edge biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and innovations in mechanical and chemical engineering to manufacture chemicals, using a process that recycles waste carbon rather than emitting it.

LanzaTech does so by equipping industrial facilities like steel mills with bioreactor hardware that captures carbon-rich gases at the source before they can be released into the atmosphere. Inside the bioreactor, specially selected and naturally occurring bacteria consume the waste carbon to produce more sustainable versions of widely-used chemical building blocks through a proprietary fermentation process similar to conventional alcohol production. In this case, ethanol was produced in the bioreactors, which was then dehydrated to become ethylene gas and turned into monoethylene glycol (MEG).

Afterwards, the MEG is polymerised with purified terephthalic acid (PTA) into the final polyester. This polyester is extruded into a yarn engineered into On’s CleanCloud apparel fabric.

Caspar Coppetti, co-founder and executive co-chairman of On, added: “We are incredibly proud that after introducing the first-ever shoe made from carbon emissions last year, we can now bring our CleanCloud technology to apparel.

“This dream couldn’t become a reality without the collaboration of partners with the same uncompromising approach in finding innovations for a more sustainable future in the sportswear industry.”