Consultant Reinhard Backhausen Says Circular Economy is the Future of the Textile Industry F&FI News Network
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OMO, ITALY—“There are not enough resources worldwide if we are going to continue to waste them the way we are doing now,” says Reinhard Backhausen, Textile business consultant who has found his new mission in life. “What we take from the planet and end up wasting will become a major problem in the future unless we change the way we do business and the way we produce things,” he says. “We should not just take away resources but reuse, recycle and keep products in those loops so we can use the existing material again and again,” the former mill owner explains. “I was a pioneer of circular economy in my former mill between 2008-2012. We practiced ‘Cradle to Cradle’ and called our products ‘Returnity,’ he recalls. We offered a discount to our customer to return the
products they bought from us. We used the fabrics returned to us as material for new products,” he says. “We were 10 years
Reinhard Backhausen is a textile veteran. For 35 years, he operated the Backhausen mill in Vienna, Austria that was founded in 1849 and is still in operation. He became a consultant in 2013 and began to give advice to international companies with regard to marketing strategy and implementation of “Circular Economy.” He counts his clients among Valdese Weavers, D’Décor, Reliance and others. He also works with the Environmental Protection Encouragement Agency of Switzerland (EPEA) He tries to increase his clients’ network, developing a customer base for each client.
Reinhard Backhausen
ahead of the market in this area and nobody understood what we were doing.” Backhausen says the world will have a problem in getting materials in just ten more years if conservation is not practiced. Now the time is right to recycle and reuse materials.” (continued on Page 24)
Crevin Covets the Green Brand Designation With a Reusable, Sustainable Mentality F&FI News Network
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ARCELONA—Uulco Baljet, Crevin’s Export Manager is presenting his company as the leading supplier and brand of recycled upholstery fabric in the spirit of the circular economy promoted by Reinhard Backhausen. (See the other story on this page) “We want to be sustainable and non-polluting. There is a market for this with the younger generation, especially in Europe,” Baljet feels. He says that Crevin expects to be carbon neutral by 2025. Crevin mainly caters to the European upholstery customer with sales that grew 20 percent in 2020 and a whopping 40 percent in 2021. Business in 2022 is expected to be up 15 percent. Crevin’s business has grown so fast that it had trouble keeping up with the orders so that a normal six-week delivery cycle stretched to a 12-week delivery on some items. Crevin sells through 25 agents to 60 countries including China, Korea, Japan, Australia, and Canada. Baljet hopes to get back on schedule with delivery by farming out production, especially greige goods for piece dying to 8 • www.FandFI.com • Summer 2022
other mills in Catalonia not far from Crevin in Terrassa. Crevin is also purchasing eight more Jacquard looms. “We double weave all our fabrics and there is no adhesive on the backing. The backside of our fabrics contains recycled yarn. All our upholstery contains recycled waste fiber,” he adds. The Crevin product line is priced 9.20€ to 20€ per meter in the upper middle price category in yarn dyed and piece dyed varieties. “It’s more costly to make recycled product but we are committed to it,” he says. “We don’t want to pollute. Our fabrics are easy to clean with soap and water. We reuse our water in our finishing plant and we have reduced water usage by 70 percent. Crevin even manages a national park in Terrassa called Sant Llorenc.” “We recapture the selvages of the fabric as it comes off the loom; over 100,000 kilos of waste is recycled annually,” he says. Crevin uses recycled PET from post-consumer waste and even cotton waste is used. That means all products contain at least 20-40 percent yarns and some products like
Uulco Baljet, Export Sales Manager, Crevin, Barcelona
Noah are 100% recycled material, he points out. F&FI
A word about Proposte 2022 Baljet was more than pleased with this year’s Proposte turnout. “It was an extremely good show. The first day was like old times with 15 of our top 20 customers showing up to see our collection. The other five customers came the second day. While we mainly had European customers, a Korean and a Peruvian customer was a surprise to us.”