Hong Kong: from textile manufacturing to sustainable fashion?

Hong Kong, the global financial powerhouse, was once a major force in the textile industry. Of course, today very little textile and garment manufacturing takes place in the city, with production having shifted to lower-cost locations like mainland China, Vietnam and elsewhere decades ago.

However, Hong Kong’s status as a hub of the garment industry persists, with various industry organisations still headquartered there. With this legacy, the Chinese special administrative region (SAR) is increasingly improving the industry’s abysmal impact on the environment.

The clothing and textile industry is responsible for an estimated 2% to 8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and about 9% of annual microplastic losses to the oceans, and consumes around 215 trillion litres of water per year, according to the UN. 

A number of sustainable fashion initiatives based in the Fragrant Harbour have emerged over the years. These include The Textile Council of Hong Kong’s Sustainable Fashion Business Consortium, established in 2008; the Sustainable Fashion Apparel Association (SFAA), whose mission is to support sustainability in Hong Kong fashion design; and Redress, an Asia-focused environmental NGO working to "accelerate the transition to a circular fashion industry by educating and empowering designers and consumers in order to reduce clothing’s negative environmental impacts."  In addition, some of the city’s design schools, including Hong Kong Polytechnic University, offer programmes in sustainable fashion. 

Better designs, more sustainable jeans

Part of this ecosystem is The Mills Fabrica, an organisation focused on incubating and investing in sustainable innovators in the textile and apparel industries. Fabrica works with all of the aforementioned Hong Kong groups to advance greater sustainability in the industry. Its general manager and head of Asia, Cintia Nunes, outlined the fashion industry’s environmental effects using an example of something we all own: jeans. Denim, Nunes explained, is one of the most polluting fabrics, because cotton cultivation uses a lot of water, a lot of land, and a lot of pesticides in conventional practices. And then the dying process uses "tons of water" to wash the denim to make it an indigo blue. And then there are the end techniques like sandblasting and whiskering.

"You probably see some of these effects on your own jeans," she said. "Those are not natural; obviously, they're processing. And so denim by itself, if it's conventionally grown, is one of the most polluting fabrics."

The Mills Fabrica works with some denim producers, including Advance Denim, Lenzing and Stella Blu, , who are embracing technologies that use much less water, and more sustainable materials and dye processes. A part of Fabrica’s work is investing in and incubating early-stage designers, which includes non-funding opportunities, like industry connections to mentors and experts. So, for instance, they help foster sustainability from the beginning, by helping a startup designer to work with such fabrics that have been produced in a more eco-friendly manner. This, in a way, is a step in addressing the environmental problems of overproduction and fast fashion, with unsold and outdated apparel becoming waste.

"Sustainability, if we really want to find the right solutions, starts at design. The designer is key, how they choose to produce, what products and what fabrics and materials they choose to use, they need to learn about the dyes, etcetera," said Nunes. "So, if we can intercept that during such an early journey of these designers, then hopefully they're able to produce more sustainable designs."

Impact strategies for sustainable fashion

This comprises just a part of the Mills Fabrica’s programmes, which also include a venture fund to invest in technologies for both textiles and food and agriculture; co-working space and events space for things like student fashion shows, and a lab that supports innovators in creating prototypes. There is retail space, and community outreach with educational workshops for children and senior citizens, and impact initiatives like competitions, awarding students for sustainability mindedness in their designs. Winners may do a residency in the Hong Kong location, and also in London, where the Mills Fabrica opened a branch in 2021 and established a partnership with Central Saint Martins

The name derives from the space it occupies, a long-vacant former cotton-spinning mill that was revitalized by its owner, the Nan Fung Group, a onetime textile company that diversified and today is in property development and management, asset and facility management, and investments. "Currently, in terms of our mother group's business, we no longer hold any business in textile or fashion, none," Nunes stressed, making the point that Fabrica has no skin in the game, so to speak, by working with designers and fabric manufacturers. The site also has shops, dining and drinking venues, a textile museum, and a gallery with rotating exhibits. "A lot of the work that Fabrica does is kind of behind curtains, because it’s with investors and startups, and it's not free to the general public," she added. 

The Mills Fabrica's impact strategy is informed by the Planetary Boundaries Framework, a scientific approach that identifies nine critical boundaries,that, if crossed, could trigger irreversible environmental changes. Since its founding in 2018, Fabrica’s work has yielded tangible results that can be illustrated through its portfolio of innovators. 

To address climate change, one of the nine boundaries, they have invested in Circ, whose hydrothermal processing technology recycles polycotton textiles back into their original raw materials. In 2022 alone, this innovation prevented 66 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions, bringing new possibilities within the upstream tech-style supply chain. Similarly, Colorifix has pioneered the world’s first biological process to produce, deposit, and fix pigments onto textiles on an industrial scale, offering a solution that is 31% less carbon-intensive compared to traditional dyeing methods.

In the realm of freshwater change, another boundary, Colorifix's technology also stands out, saving 79% of the water typically used in conventional dyeing processes. Further contributing to this effort, unspun™ has developed 3D body scanning technology to manufacture bespoke jeans on demand. This innovation, combined with resortecs® smart stitch technology, can save up to 98% of water when recycling a pair of unspun™ jeans into a new pair.

Innovative fabrics resulting from Fabrica’s incubations have been used by brands including Stella McCartney, GANNI, Zara, United Arrows, Mara Hoffman, Pangaia and Walmart.

Recycled fashion

Redress, the Hong Kong sustainability NGO, addresses the other side of the fashion industry’s environmental impact: apparel as waste. They’ve placed boxes around the city where people can put their used clothes to be recycled, and have a recycling program inviting people to take part and sort the textile waste. "So it's education, and, really, to let the general public see the end of the supply chain," said Nunes.

The organisation also works with designers, educating them in ways to produce more responsibly, and their annual Redress Design Award is the world’s largest sustainable fashion design competition for emerging designers. Paris-based sustainable designer Kevin Germainier, who won first prize in 2015 while still a student at Central Saint Martins, has designed the costumes for the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics. As the Redress top winner, Germainier, a Swiss national, spent several months in Hong Kong designing a capsule collection for a major retailer, an experience that he called a game-changer.

These Hong Kong fashion sustainability advocacy groups work with education, public awareness, investors, startups, brands, retailers, manufacturers and researchers. "We need this whole ecosystem to work, or connect the right dots, in order to push a bit of that needle, driving towards sustainability and move towards a more positive impact future for the textile industry," said Nunes. In other words, despite many already existing efforts, the fashion industry’s footprint is still immense, and much more needs to be done to make it more sustainable, from designers to production, supply chains and consumer choices.

Hong Kong has long since moved away from its industrial past and transformed into a modern, information-based society. In the same way, these initiatives are an attempt to bring the garment industry into a sustainable present.