Conventionally, the recipe for spandex has centered on fossil fuels as both a raw material and energy source.

South Korea-based Hyosung TNC is lowering spandex’s carbon impact by transitioning the inputs of one of the key building blocks for this stretch fiber—1,4-Butanediol, or BDO for short—to a plant-based material: sugarcane. Making this swap reduces the fiber’s total carbon impact by roughly 45 to 55 percent.*

“The value add that comes in for both ourselves as Hyosung in terms of producers, value chain partners and therefore brands and retailers is this significant lower impact in carbon footprint, traceability, visibility of supply chain, and of course it gives brands and retailers a diversification of supply chain as well,” Malvina Hoxha, director of U.S. marketing at Hyosung TNC, told Jasmin Malik Chua, climate and labor editor at Sourcing Journal, during a recent fireside chat.

Enabling Hyosung TNC to produce bio-spandex at commercial scale is its parent company’s $1 billion investment to build a bio-BDO plant, which will supply BDO for apparel as well as other sectors. Based in Vietnam, this facility has the potential to grow annual capacity to 200,000 tons. Hyosung’s nearby textile fiber factory recently began using the bio-BDO to make the sugarcane-based spandex, which is being shipped to mill partners across the globe.

For manufacturers, the bio-based spandex is a drop-in solution that acts identically to conventional elastane. Hyosung and around 50 early adopter manufacturing partners have also tested the fiber to ensure that qualities like stretch and recovery perform as expected.

When it initially launched bio-BDO a couple years ago, Hyosung was using dent corn. But swapping the input to sugarcane comes with a few advantages, including reducing the BDO manufacturing process by one step. From an agricultural standpoint, sugar makes sense since farmers grow more sugarcane than can currently be used for industries like food production.

Hyosung is partnering with Czarnikow (CZ) to source sugarcane. From the farms in Brazil forward, the raw material is tracked through CZ’s VIVE platform, providing traceability into the fibers’ origins.

“We’re not experts in raw materials like sugar, but we are experts in in spandex production. So we do want to really stick to the lane where our expertise is best utilized,” said Hoxha. “We are heavily reliant on our partners on the ground that have exceptional knowledge base and capacity for what’s happening at the grower level.”

This sugarcane-based spandex ramp up is just one additional step toward the company’s sustainability North Star: circularity.

“The conversation doesn’t stop with bio-based spandex,” Hoxha explained. “It’s how do we think about biodegradability, and then furthermore, how do we think about full circularity of biobased materials at large?”

Watch the video to learn more about how Hyosung is bringing bio-spandex to market.

*Hyosung TNC internal life cycle assessment calculations. Independent third-party verification is planned.