“Repreve® helps other brands tell a great eco-story,” he said.
He also mentioned Repreve’s #turnitgreen campaign, which encourages consumers to recycle. Partners include the Detroit Lions, UNC-Chapel Hill athletics, Marvel and the Aspen Games.
Unifi built its 50,000 Repreve Recycling Center in Yadkinville, N.C., for the purpose of recycling polyester-based fabrics as well as post-industrial and post-consumer polyester, he said. It currently recycles 72 million pounds of product a year and will probably reach 100 million pounds per year soon, he added.
The company’s sustainability efforts are not only centered around its Repreve® product, however, Berrier said.
“You certainly have to walk the talk,” he said. “As a company, we’re doing a lot of other things that we probably spend 1 percent of the time talking about. For us, as a company, it’s more about corporate sustainability and what we’re doing around energy, labor, packaging and transportation. It’s become part of our culture. All of our operations in the U.S. now are landfill free. We send nothing to the landfill. We find a way to dispose of everything through recycling or incinerating it for fuel or energy.”
Along those lines, Unifi is investing in a one-megawatt solar farm to power 10 percent of the Repreve Recycling Center, he said.
Other speakers
Summit attendees also heard from:
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Michael Vaknin of JP Morgan Private Bank, who gave an economic overview;
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Mark Stubly of the Ogletree, Deakins law firm, who discussed union organization trends and how to be better prepared for campaigns;
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Lewis Gossett, SCMA president & CEO, who offered a statewide legislative update and the state of manufacturing in South Carolina;
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Bernie Maybank III of Nexsen Pruet LLC, who covered the South Carolina business climate;
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Terry Dunn of Positive Management Leadership, who dispensed ways to improve leadership abilities;
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Howard Einstein of Rosenfeld Einstein, who went over wellness programs in manufacturing;
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South Carolina Legislative Majority Leader Rep. Bruce Bannister; and
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Auggie Tantillo, president and CEO of the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), whose presentation was covered in Part 1.
At the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance’s (SCMA’s) Textile Summit here last month, Roger Berrier, Unifi’s president & CEO, offered a glimpse into why sustainability is an important part of its business model – and will be for years to come.
“When you look at manufacturing, it can be doom and gloom or it can be something we can get excited about, he said. "And one of the things we’ve done at Unifi is turn to innovation. We’ve looked at what can we do as a company to continue to innovate ourselves. It’s hard to keep fighting that commodity fight. Certainly, a big piece of our business is based on our commodities, but we turned to innovation. From that perspective, sustainability turned into a good business platform.”
Offering a glimpse at the “21st century ecosystem” in terms of consumption, he pointed out that 20 percent of the world’s population uses 80 percent of its resources, including water, energy and CO2. And rising global awareness of resource consumption – in addition to the
“So as we can match up our business platforms to the products and the messaging that we’re selling, we’re looking at a long-term view,” he continued. “Where do we want to be in five years, 10 years? We believe that continuing down the sustainability road – looking at sustainable products, promoting those sustainable products, building a brand around those sustainable products, working with our many customers who are in this room, helping you build that platform and tell that message – that will help position ourselves for that bigger fight down the road.”
Berrier also cited independent surveys showing that sustainability is now mainstream, with 70 percent of consumers considering themselves “green consumers” and 79 percent of consumers recycling household waste. He added that, as global population increases – from 6.9 billion today to more than 9 billion by the end of the century – attention to sustainability and recycling will only grow.
He went on to explain the Repreve® product, which is made from recycled plastic bottles and fiber waste. Its original end use was apparel, but it’s now found in virtually every segment. Unifi has partnerships with numerous brands for the product, including The North Face, Patagonia, Ford and many others.
Posted February 9, 2015
By Devin Steele (DSteele@eTextileCommunications.com)
SPARTANBURG, S.C. – As most of you probably know, Unifi, Inc. is one of the textile industry’s leaders in sustainability. The Greensboro, N.C.-based company made the decision to embrace the rapidly growing green movement in 2007 with the introduction of its Repreve® recycled fiber brand.
SCMA Textile Summit – Part 2
Leader discusses Unifi’s embrace of sustainability
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oft-controversial subject of global climate – has precipitated the desire on the part of Unifi to hitch its wagon to the sustainability train.
“Temperature rise, climate change, whatever you want to call it, it’s something everyone is talking about,” Berrier said. “We in the older generation sometimes see this as rhetoric. Whether you believe this stuff or not, it doesn’t matter. Let’s go back to the business of manufacturing. Unifi is trying to appeal to everyone. And we’re looking at the younger demographic. My daughter is a senior in high school and when I talk to her about this, she’s really engaged. Her friends are engaged. College students are engaged. Those are the people who will become more and more powerful in the consumer market. They’re really in tune to this kind of stuff.