Have you ever saved 1000 liters of water with one t-shirt? Or did you know that you can make four WoodShirts from just one kilo of wood?

Since 2015 we have been producing sustainable fashion from wood that is not only ecologically produced, but also fair in Portugal, more precisely north of Porto.

SUSTAINABLE CLOTHING MADE OF WOOD - THE ECOLOGICAL ALTERNATIVE TO CONVENTIONAL GARMENTS

Although sustainable clothing made of wood may sound unusual at first, it is an extremely environmentally friendly alternative to conventional materials such as cotton and polyester.

Wood is a natural, biodegradable raw material that, unlike cotton, is also native to our climate zone. The wood for our clothing comes exclusively from sustainable forestry and comes from Austria, Germany or the Czech Republic, among other places.

WHAT IS SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY?

Sustainable forestry describes a form of forest management in which the ecological, social and economic aspects are harmonized. The focus here is on the idea of the forest's natural regenerative capacity, which in short means that the forest is preserved and protected for future generations. 

However, forests are more than a collection of many trees. They are a valuable ecosystem and serve as a habitat for a wide variety of animal, fungal and plant species. They also help to protect water and soil, as their roots increase the water storage capacity of the soil and protect it from erosion.

Forests also have an enormously high significance for our climate. They extract CO² from the air and store it in trees and in the soil. It is estimated that trees store 49% of the world's CO². When wood is processed into wood products, the CO² it contains remains stored, as it is only released during the biological decomposition of the wood. This means that wood products, such as our WoodShirts, contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and can replace materials that are more harmful to the climate.

WHY IS CLOTHING MADE FROM WOOD MORE ECOLOGICAL THAN COTTON CLOTHING?

In contrast to ordinary cotton, a significant difference in terms of environmental friendliness can already be seen in the planting of trees. While in forestry no additional fertilizers have to be used to achieve yields for the production of wood fiber, various fertilizers and pesticides are used for the cultivation of cotton. The agents used, such as aldicarb among others, have a strong impact on the environment and contribute to freshwater pollution and terrestrial pollution. This is because the mentioned pesticide causes more than 80% of the freshwater pollution caused on the cultivated land.

In addition, the high water consumption caused by artificial irrigation of cotton plantations in areas with low rainfall even leads to significant permanent ecological damage. A sad negative example is the drying up of the Aral Sea, once the largest inland water body on earth. 
Forests, on the other hand, do not need to be artificially irrigated and can also store water for longer and in greater quantities than a comparable open area.

In contrast to ordinary cotton, a significant difference in terms of environmental friendliness can already be seen in the planting of trees. While in forestry no additional fertilizers have to be used to achieve yields for the production of wood fiber, various fertilizers and pesticides are used for the cultivation of cotton. The agents used, such as aldicarb among others, have a strong impact on the environment and contribute to freshwater pollution and terrestrial pollution. This is because the mentioned pesticide causes more than 80% of the freshwater pollution caused on the cultivated land.

In addition, the high water consumption caused by artificial irrigation of cotton plantations in areas with low rainfall even leads to significant permanent ecological damage. A sad negative example is the drying up of the Aral Sea, once the largest inland water body on earth. 
Forests, on the other hand, do not need to be artificially irrigated and can also store water for longer and in greater quantities than a comparable open area.

HOW ARE ECO-FRIENDLY CLOTHES MADE FROM WOOD?

The process for producing viscose fibers could probably be called the forefather of our fabric and was developed as early as the 1890s. However, the viscose production process has some disadvantages. Carbon disulfide is used as a solvent, which is not only harmful to the environment and health, but also very resource-intensive.

The process used to produce the fibers for our woody clothing, on the other hand, is convincing in its environmental friendliness, especially in comparison with other cellulose-based regenerated fibers.

In the first step, cellulose is extracted from the wood. This produces the pulp, which is now dissolved in organic, environmentally friendly N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO) by removing water without chemical modification. It is important to note that toxic reagents, such as the carbon disulfide (CS2) already mentioned above, are not used throughout the process. The pulp is then filtered and finally pressed through spinnerets. The resulting fibers are then precipitated into a bath of aqueous NMMO solution and then combined as fiber tow.

The solvent can be recycled again and again, as it is very easy to remove from the fiber due to its good water-miscibility. The recycling rate is an impressive 99.5-99.8%. This makes fiber recovery environmentally friendly and valuable resources are saved.

SAVE RESOURCES WITH ECOLOGICAL CLOTHING MADE OF WOOD

Just how many resources can be saved can already be seen by comparing the water consumption of the wood fiber we use with that of cotton.

To produce 1 kg of wood fiber, 0.02 m³ of process water and 0.243 m³ of cooling water are required. However, until a fiber was produced from the cotton plant, only 0.005 m³ of process water and 0.037 m³ of cooling water were used, but a full 5.69 m³ of water was used for irrigation. In addition, 70% of the water used for cotton fiber production comes from groundwater and 30% from surface water. Overall, the water consumption of cotton fiber production is thus 10 to 20 times - without cooling water already 100 to 500% - higher than for the wood fibers of our clothing. Finally, most of the water consumed in the production of wood fibers is used only for cooling purposes and is returned unpolluted to surface waters.

The energy balance of the manufacturing process of the fiber from wood is also impressive. In fact, by the time the fiber is ready for use, just 0.1 kg of CO² is released per kilogram of fiber produced, compared with 2 kg of CO² per kilogram of fiber produced in cotton production. Accordingly, the use of wood fibers compared to cotton can reduce CO² emissions by a factor of 20. It is also important to mention that the energy for wood fiber production is almost exclusively obtained from the use of waste products (such as bark and lye); more precisely, 86.3% of the fuels used are non-fossil and CO²-neutral.

SUSTAINABLE & BIODEGRADABLE CLOTHES

Wood-derived fibers, just like the wood from which they were created, have a very high biodegradability. Unlike synthetic materials such as polyester, which are most commonly used in the fashion industry and take centuries to decompose, cellulose-based fibers such as Lyocell take only a few years to biodegrade, leaving no harmful residues.

WE PLANT TREES - A PIECE OF FOREST FOR EVERY ORDER

With our project, we want to do more than just produce environmentally friendly clothing. We want to show alternatives, create understanding for the complex work steps, provide insights behind the scenes and thereby increase appreciation. Since we use a raw material from nature, we would like to give more back and stand up for nature.

That's why, since the founding of wijld, we have planted a tree in Mexico for every order and supported a local reforestation project there. In 2021, we acquired our own piece of forest near Marsberg in the Sauerland region and started our own reforestation project. We would like to reforest this piece of forest, which has been destroyed by climate change, together with you so that a species-rich forest can emerge.

WHAT SUSTAINABILITY MEANS TO US

With our wijld project we want to stand up for the processing of sustainable raw materials on the one hand, but on the other hand we also want to draw attention to the working conditions under which fashion is created. Unfortunately, the majority of fashion worldwide is produced under inhumane conditions. This is not only the sewing of clothes, but rather the entire process, starting with the raw material, such as the cotton plant. 

We would like to raise awareness of how many people work together so that in the end an article of clothing can be created. These backgrounds, as well as the knowledge about the long production chains let you see clothes with different eyes. We hope that we can contribute with our small project to create more transparency and thus an understanding, which leads to the fact that one buys more consciously and wears clothes longer.

That's what sustainability means to us.

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