Ubiquiti: Unifi's Sustainability Report Highlights Circular Fiber Launch

In This Article: Post-consumer plastic recycler and synthetic yarn maker Unifi outlined recent circularity gains in its 2025 Sustainability Snapshot, highlighting progress in textile-to-textile recycling. Kicked off by the company's 2024 launch of Repreve Takeback , which is made of 100 percent recycled materials, 50 percent of which comes from post-consumer and post-industrial textiles, the new line of performance polyester ups the circularity of Repreve fiber and yarn, which has to this point mostly been made of recycled plastic bottles. More from Sourcing Journal Unifi also launched a circular thermal insulation product called Thermaloop in early fiscal year 2025. The down-like fiber and fiberball are made with 100 percent recycled materials, including at least 50 percent textile waste. According to the report, Unifi has recycled the equivalent of 950 million T-shirts worth of textile and yarn waste to date, putting the company on track to reach 1.5 billion T-shirts' worth by fiscal year 2030. And as of the end of 2024, Unifi has diverted 42 billion plastic bottles from landfills, with a goal of reaching 50 billion by December 2025. In 2024, Unifi also invested in two third-party, peer-reviewed life cycle assessments for its Repreve Takeback staple fiber and ThermaLoop. Compared to virgin polyester production, both products reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 42 percent to 77 percent. The products also reduced energy consumption by 47 percent to 84 percent, fossil fuel consumption by 48 percent to 85 percent and freshwater consumption by 46 percent to 71 percent. "In our ongoing drive to reduce virgin yarn production, we aim for Repreve fiber to comprise over 50 percent of revenue in the near future," said Eddie Ingle, CEO and director of Unifi . "We aspire to lessen our environmental impact through a 30 percent reduction in Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions intensity and target zero noncompliant water discharges each year." The Greensboro, North Carolina-based company, which operated three facilities in the state along with operations in Brazil and El Salvador, estimated its total water use for fiscal year 2024 at 968,420 cubic meters. Of that, Unifi's dyeing operation in Reidsville, N.C., accounts for 57 percent, but that facility also uses reclaimed water from that process for bottle processing. Earlier this month, Unifi announced that it was shuttering its Madison, N.C., plant as part of its debt repayment plan. That facility accounted for 10 percent of the company's annual water usage. The company employs more than 2,700 people globally, works with more than 460 raw material suppliers around the world and serves around 1,500 customers worldwide. Ingle said that the Sustainability Snapshot shows that Unifi is making real progress on its environmental goals, the bulk of which they hope to reach by fiscal year 2030. "We continually push boundaries in recycling, waste reduction, and innovation to make sustainable manufacturing available at scale," he said.