Episode 48 – Paraskevi Fotoglou of Camira Fabrics

Interview Transcript

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Catherine Weetman  00:02

Paraskevi Fotoglou is Sustainability Engineer at Camira Fabrics, a textile manufacturing company for task and soft seating based in West Yorkshire in the UK. Paraskevi has expertise in circular economy projects and innovative design ideas. And our main focus is exploring new sustainability paths and enhancing circular initiatives with the design, innovation and manufacturing teams across the Camira business. At Camira, she’s developed a broad knowledge on environmental accreditation, voc emissions, the use of chemical substances at each stage of fabric manufacture, and the incorporation of sustainable fibres. Paraskevi, welcome to the circular economy podcast. You’ve studied statistics and have a master’s degree in economic development and sustainability. And over the last 10 years, you’ve lived and studied in different countries. How did your education and experience lead you to the circular economy?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  01:03

Hello, Catherine, I’m delighted to be here. So yeah, as you said, my studies brought me here where I am I studied statistics. But then I when you have to decide when you’re 18 years old, what you want to do, I don’t think you’re ready quite ready for that. So I always knew that I that’s not the career I wanted to pursue. And so when I stopped working in the bit, well, something relevant to statistics, then I decided that’s not what I want to do. And I decided to start to do my studies on something more connected to the environmental impact and sustainability. It was a new field for me. And then I moved to Spain for that. And then I found out that that’s what I always wanted to do. It was my devotion. And I just kept following, doing that and pursuing it, And throughout the years, wherever I’ve been moving. And here I went to Camira at a farm while I was there as well.

Catherine Weetman  02:10

So were you studying in the UK? And then found Camira? Or did you were you looking, you know, worldwide and came across Camira?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  02:21

I was I started in Spain. Then I moved to Finland for a couple of years. And then I moved to the UK. But when I moved in the UK, I was just looking for a new job and I found Camira which then I realised that this is the right place to start because of all the sustainability effort that they’ve been working for so many years.

Catherine Weetman  02:48

Yeah, I was when I first came across Camira back at Huddersfield University at one of the sustainable apparel and textiles conferences that they’ve had over a few years. I was just amazed and so impressed by all the things they were doing. This was you know, three or four years ago, just thinking wow, this is brilliant that you know, this company already doing this. And the fact that it’s you know, based near where I was brought up kind of you know, made it even better back in the in the textile heartland of of West Yorkshire. So that’s really good. So tell us a bit about Camira’s journey and maybe some of the pitfalls along that journey and trying to do things in a more sustainable way.

Paraskevi Fotoglou  03:35 Yeah, so Camira’s got a long tradition in developing innovative fabrics and ideas. So that started back like roughly 20 years ago 1998 with the ‘rescue’ product, which was it was a fabric made out of recycled wool – woollen jumpers – army jumpers. And it was a great idea in terms of circular economy. And also in terms of chemicals because they were just using it were pulling back the jumpers into fibre, and then they were just processing the fabric without any dyeing. It was just that the natural colour of the jumper actually, and and no matter how good is an idea it was it was I think too early in the market, because circular economy wasn’t big back then. So it wasn’t appreciated in terms of a sustainability idea at the time. And also, I statically it was a bit challenging. So it wasn’t a big, huge sales success. So we had to discontinue the fabric. And that was the first lesson we’ll learn. And it’s not just you know, the idea is not just good enough, but you need also to work on this design and how and the looks of the fabric. That was the first lesson. And then following that we had we have been working with recycled polyester for a few years now as well. So we started with us industrial waste, recycled polyester. And then we develop that into post-consumer recycled polyester the quite a few categories. So, it sounds a little bit confusing, but the post-consumer is, is basically PET bottles that we drink, and we dispose and they’re recycled.

Paraskevi Fotoglou  04:24

And, and then we also developed a closed loop initiative. So we had a partnership with one of our yarn suppliers. And what we were doing is we were returning back to them our remnants and our waste from the weaving process. And they were returning back this waste into yarn by a process which there were shredding fibre, and they were extruding the polymer, and then they were extruding it into yarn. And I think the difficulty with this closed loop initiative, it’s again is a great idea. However, it is a bit challenging in terms of ice, not aesthetics, but of how much you want to work with the design of the product, because in order for this yarn to be returned back to us it is dyed into black colour. And that means that how much Black can you use in a design? Right? So we only use 25% of that yarn into our products. So there is certain constraints and the other not paid for? Yeah, I would say pitfall because, again, great idea, a lot of effort. But somehow we didn’t manage to get it right. Not right. But we couldn’t maintain the good quality was a product that it was called century. And that was also made out of a blend of wool and jute fibres. So the jute fibres were worn fibres from coffee sacks, they were pulled back into the fibre.

Catherine Weetman  07:50

So that was we’d call it with an English accent, we’d call that jute. Okay, just to make sure everybody knows. Because it’s not it’s not a common fibre fabric anyway, isn’t it? Lots of people won’t have heard of it. So you don’t, you don’t tend to see jeans and T shirts in it. So sorry. Wool, a blend of wool and jute.

Paraskevi Fotoglou  08:13

Yeah, so that was great. Also, the looks, I think it looked fantastic. It was one of my favourite fabrics. For the concept, the idea the looks, but we had problems, meeting the same quality standards every time. And this is one of the problems of the industry, like what we were selling, it’s not just about the flammability standards, were there quite a few other things that you need to look before you launch the product. And you need to have all the time, same quality, standard quality. So to get how can you really make sure that you’re consistent with quality when your raw material is coming from waste? And that’s I think the biggest constraint when it comes to circular economy projects. I’m sure you you’re aware of those constraints as well.

Catherine Weetman  09:09

Yeah. And I guess I guess particularly so when, if you’re providing seating for a big a big company, they might, they might be placing a big order is mine. It’s not just if it was a consumer on one person buying a sofa, and they can see the fabric that’s going to go on there. So from there thinking “Oh yeah, I love that.” They don’t really care whether the sofa that’s that’s, you know, going to be made for somebody else next month looks slightly different. That doesn’t matter to them. But if it’s a big company, then you know, it’s it has to look consistent, doesn’t it?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  09:46

Exactly, that’s the case. Yeah. So we we and we have also very, our quality team is very up to speed, just making sure everything has got the same quality. So we do realise But this is a restriction but when you have big orders, you just can’t you need to deliver every time the same. Can you?

Catherine Weetman  10:08

Yeah, you keep going with it. And you you mentioned in in talking about those fabrics, you mentioned fire retardant coatings and I guess there’ll be other finishing coatings and things that that generally get applied, particularly to contract furnishing fabrics, but also to furnishing fabrics that people would buy for their homes governed by legislation. Can you talk a bit about the challenges of some of that, because I think a lot of people won’t realise just, you know, how much other stuff is is applied, you might be thinking you’re buying, you know, something in world, but actually, it’s got all these other things on it as well.

Paraskevi Fotoglou  10:48

Mm hmm. It is shocking, I think the flame retardant [FR] industry and especially, I would say, in the UK, because we have really, it is very regulated, they’re very region, a lot of tests need, you need to meet regulations. And there’s a lot of FR in, in the market that really shouldn’t be used. And in what we do at Camira, we’ve managed to develop a line with a collection, the bast fibre collection, where we blended wool with bast fibres. And we manage to avoid using any FR post treatment chemicals, so no extra post treatment. And that was great. One of the successes of Camira it was in the industry because we we’ve been working with this, the nettle project, like the Sting project, and we managed to develop this fabric, which was a blend of wool, and nettle. And throughout the development is when we actually realised that when you blend those two things that you manage to meet very high flammability standards without the post treatment. And since that we’ve been working a lot with bast fibres, we’ve developed quite a few different ranges. So we started with a nettle. And then we developed we when will sorry, we’re working with hemp as well. And we have a hemp farm in Leicester owned by Camira. And then we’ll also be using flax quite a lot. And we try to. And also, just, actually, this month, we launched a new product, the Craggan flax, which is essentially the older product that Craggan that we had, but we added a little bit of flax, and now we don’t have to FR the product as a post-treatment.

Catherine Weetman  13:01

So what was the first fibre?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  13:04

It was called? Craggan

Catherine Weetman  13:05

Craggan? Okay, then, I’ve never heard of that.

Paraskevi Fotoglou  13:09

The new range is called Craggan Flax.

Catherine Weetman  13:12

So what’s what’s Craggan?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  13:15

It was just 100%. But no, it was 100% wool range, okay, very chunky.

Catherine Weetman  13:21

Okay, so now it’s, it’s wool and flax. And so, just to again, help help those who aren’t familiar with textiles. To understand it. You’ve mentioned bast fibres quite a lot. And we’ve given some examples of hemp, flax and nettles. But can you unpack what’s the bast fibre is, so that people can kind of get the difference between that and you know, a short fibre like wool or or, or cotton or whatever?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  13:52

Yeah, yeah, so there are plants like flax or nettles, we all are familiar with the stinging nettle, aren’t we . And what we use, we harvest those plants in fields that normally they would not be suitable for any other crops. And then we just harvest them and we let them on the field and there is this process which is called the ‘retting’ process and which is separates the fibre from the wooden part from the stem of the plant. And once that’s separated by the retting process, which is 100% natural process, you just leave it there in the field for a couple of weeks. And there is another processor which is called mechanical decortication. And then you can actually separate the fabric base based on a process on the difference of weight of the woody part and the fibre. So you managed to take this fibre And then you just blended with wool to create the fabric.

Catherine Weetman  15:07

So the advantage of advantage of using bast fibres, if I can summarise what you said is, generally, they tend to grow well in, you know, poorly fertile areas, not needing loads of agricultural chemicals and fertilisers and stuff like that, as we all know, nettles will pop up everywhere, but a lot of the others, you know, hemp and flax and so on, they’re, they’re quite sustainable to grow. And you can make as I understand it, he can make quite a long fibre out of them. So they’re, they work well as a as a blend, is that right, but perhaps not so well. On their, on their own, and also the process of turning them from a plant into something else. The beginning a bit of it sounds like it might be like a fermentation process, if you just kind of leaving them in the field to rot a bit, then, then that’s, that’s a low, low impact. So

Paraskevi Fotoglou  16:10

exactly that

Catherine Weetman  16:12

So you’re developing quite a lot around fibres, which, which, from what I understand, you know, we used to use loads more of, we’ve kind of moved away from them towards, you know, cotton and, and particularly the synthetic blends, but bast fibres in themselves, you know, have been around for centuries, haven’t they?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  16:31

They have been around centuries. So they, we start using them, I think, during the Second World War, because there was a big scarcity of cotton, so they start using them again. But then also, it was I think the main reason why they stopped using those fibres, it was because, you know, cotton was everywhere. Although we all know, it’s not the most sustainable fibre in terms of water consumption and pesticides. However, in terms of it’s very easy to in terms of labour, like the industry has developed so much so you can get easily the cotton, whereas for nettles, it required a higher labour work, it was more difficult to get it and I don’t think they do, because it’s not that popular. They haven’t, and work it out how they can do it more efficiently.

Catherine Weetman  17:37

Yeah, but but maybe they will

Paraskevi Fotoglou  17:38

it’s not a popular fibre anyway.

Catherine Weetman  17:40

No, but it’s, you know, that I think those kind of fibres have such great potential and cotton, you know, cotton’s so pesticide and water hungry. And, you know, often it’s grown in areas of water scarcity. So it’s it’s not not that not a great a great option. So you’ve talked a little bit about closed loop and open loop processes. And maybe you could give us an example of a couple of those projects that you’ve got underway.

Paraskevi Fotoglou  18:14

Well, I would like to discuss a little bit about the Oceanic range, which was launched back in well last year. And I think we are it is a great project. And we’re really happy about that, because the Oceanic project is actually, it is incorporating sea waste into the fabric. And we’ve been working with a SEAQUAL initiative. And so the SEAQUAL  initiative is working with a few different stakeholders from a non governmental organisation manufacturers. And they all work together. And basically what they do is they do ocean cleanups. And they are based mainly in Europe, so mainly in the Mediterranean region. So they’re quite local, and they’re trying to tackle a global problem of the ocean pollution. And they do the cleanups. And once they do the cleanup, then they sort out the waste because it could be anything from metal glass to plastic, and once they start out the waste and the plastic then they it’s the same pretty much process as the closed loop so they take back the plastic waste so they they clean it a shredded they extruded into yarn, and then the yarn is returning back to our premises and we weave it into fabric We’ve sort of developed this range last year, we’ve managed to launch last year.

Catherine Weetman  20:07

Fantastic. And so is that is that getting good traction with customers and so on? Are they excited about it?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  20:15

It is a very popular, right? Yes, it is, indeed, they’re very excited about it. There is a shift on attention on the plastic pollution, which obviously, it’s only a good thing at the moment, customers are getting, I’m jumping a little bit here, but they’re getting very demanding with what they want to buy. They’re not happy with buying raw polyester, Virgin polyester, or just material that doesn’t have an environmental aspect on it. And that’s only a good thing, because it can lead to innovation and great design ideas from the manufacturers.

Catherine Weetman  20:56

Yeah, absolutely. You know, constraints are a great way of forcing innovation out there to to, you know, suddenly have to not use this or, you know, only focus on recycled materials, that kind of thing can really, really help focus, focus those creative minds on, you know, how else could we could we do this, and I think it’s brilliant news that customers are starting to actually demand that so now, it’s not a case of trying to encourage them. And it feels as if companies are able to tell a much better story to their customers and and employees are a member, Greg Lavery from Rype Office talking about some of his customers who were, you know, quite expensive lawyers. And, you know, sort of, you introduce a new client. And if you’ve got a really expensive, you know, antique table in your meeting room that already puts the puts the customer off, because they’re thinking out, you know, how much you’re going to charge me for this. But when you’ve got an interesting story to tell about, you know, some post consumer waste that’s been recycled into this multicolored table, then that tells a completely different story, doesn’t it and sets a different tone to the relationship with your with your own customer. So people are finding all sorts of all sorts of knock on effects that maybe they hadn’t anticipated, about, you know, doing things that are that are better for the planet and society. And one of the other things we talked about in our emails ahead of the podcast was the Technical Knitting initiative that Camira has developed.

Paraskevi Fotoglou  22:37

So yeah, this is a unit based in Nottingham. And that, I think, is a great what they do is like, essentially, they’re creating, it’s a knit, it’s a knitting facility, and they’re creating cases for chairs. And I think is great in terms of processing. So there’s the facility is waste free, because it’s all needed for the chair. So there is no cut after that. It’s just the case. But in the chair, that’s it. The other thing is that there’s no water process at all in the unit. So we have a big. So obviously, one of the biggest constraints into the textile manufacturing is the water consumed, and this facility doesn’t have any work processes. So there’s another benefit on using that type of material.

Catherine Weetman  23:41

Yeah. And and an improvement both in water consumed and also in getting the chemicals that you would normally have had to, you know, clean up before the wastewater was that way. So lots lots of benefits there. And again, when we were talking before the podcast, you mentioned the exciting project that’s coming up for you in 2021. That’s focusing on trying to do Environmental Product Profiles for both Camiras’ natural and synthetic fabric offerings. So Camira can measure and start to describe its environmental footprint? Can you tell us a bit about about that?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  24:21

Yes, this is a project that I really am really looking forward. I really, I’ve been craving to do this project for a few years now. It is an it is a big project, very time consuming. So it’s going to take most of my time. It’s going to be a lot of back and forth acquiring information from suppliers, which we all know is not the easiest thing to get. But hopefully we can get some what we could we can have the environmental product declarations and then understand Our footprint understand the impact that our company that our products have? And how do they actually affect the environment. And so the EPD is essentially based on lifecycle assessment studies. You gather information from the suppliers, you put them all in a spreadsheet. And then what you see as the final document is, okay, what was the effect on climate change for producing this fabric? And what was the verification because of the chemical use, there’s quite a few factors that you won’t, so you have to leave them to the factors that they’re more related to the manufacturing process. And we’ve only just started this week, last week, we had the kickoff meeting, but I’m really looking forward to work on this project. And we can hopefully be able to share the results with our our suppliers and customers, and everyone was interested to know, how do we actually produce fabrics? And what’s the real cost behind one metre of fabric?

Catherine Weetman  26:08

Yeah, because I think it’s such a complex area. And I guess lots of people, once, if they started to do a lifecycle analysis for their own products, would quickly realise just how complex this is, and how many different factors come into play. And, you know, it’s not just about carbon footprint is it is about all sorts of other things that you know, the where the chemicals come from, for the coatings and dyes, and you know, what happens to them afterwards. And you know, how the fibres are grown or made, and just a whole, a whole raft of different things. So I’m sure I’m sure that’s going to be a project on your, on your to do list for quite a while to get to grips. And as new fabrics come along. It’s it’s some more analysis. So perhaps perhaps we can finish up by talking about some of the general trends in the industry, we’ve talked a little bit about how customers needs and demands are changing. But what about, you know, the rest of your industry? what’s what’s happening? And what are people starting to focus on a move towards?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  27:21

Yeah, I think the, the main issue that is, is recurring nowadays is more about the transparency and chemical disclosure of FRs or any other dyestuffs. That has started, I think the trend started from the US market, where the few building standards, they’re very popular, like the lead and the well and the breeam. And essentially, they demand you to have certain environmental aspects in order to add your material to a new building. And those standards, they do value a lot transparency, and chemical compliance with a few lists that they are like hazardous lists with chemicals. And I think that’s what I see is the biggest trend at the moment, chemical transparency, because I think the where the fabric is coming from and the mills and the effluence have been discussed in the future quite a lot. So we’re moving to the second analysis a little bit more in depth of what’s actually inside the fabric.

Catherine Weetman  28:45

And I, I guess people are starting to realise just how little kind of, you know, in the round thought has gone into deciding which dyes and coatings and finishing chemicals and so on that we use. I’m imagining it, it’s going to be a bit like pharmaceuticals or whatever, where, you know, there’s a, there’s a focus on finding the chemicals to make the body react in some way. And it’s only only after sort of eight to 10 years, when studies come in about side effects and things that things are around long enough to find out what impact they actually have on the on the human body or the environment. And that’s when you know, as I understand that most most drugs are withdrawn after about 10 years and reformulated and that’s probably because that’s when the studies all start to emerge that make them you know, on viable and then a lot of the things that we’ve done in in all sorts of industries. You know, just like with asbestos, it was a wonder material wasn’t it for a while. And then we realised just what horrific effects it’s got, but that doesn’t emerge for quite a while. So I can imagine that over the next 10 or 20 years, there’ll be all sorts of things appearing on red lists that we’ve been using for, you know, years or decades.

Paraskevi Fotoglou  30:15

Yeah, yeah. And the many chemicals that they’re phasing out at the moment. So that’s only a good thing. I think there’s a lot of scrutiny of the chemicals at the moment.

Catherine Weetman  30:28

Yeah. Yeah. I do think that

Paraskevi Fotoglou  30:30

It leads us to be more vigilant.

Catherine Weetman  30:33

Mm. Yeah.

Paraskevi Fotoglou  30:35

so that that’s only a good thing.

Catherine Weetman  30:36

Yeah. And maybe going back to some of the more traditional ways of of dying, that, you know, what we’ve we’ve, it’s been around for longer, so we’re able to measure its effects more as long term effects more easily. So that all sounds all sounds good. So just to come back to you, Paraskevi, working in this, you know, even even in the textile heartland of West Yorkshire, it must be quite a kind of niche area that you’re in. You know, when you explain to people that what kind of stuff you do and explain about the circular economy? Do they get it people starting to become more familiar with it? Or do you have to find some way to explain it?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  31:23

Interesting question. Yeah, there’s only, there’s never just one sentence of what I do, or just the title, there is always a big of explanation and description of what I do. But once I start going, then they get all most of the people say, Oh, really? And then they just bringing examples and say, Yeah, I know this, or I know that. So I, I feel that people are getting more familiar with circular economy, and the bringing examples of their own that they’ve seen on LinkedIn or in any other platform. So it is out there. Now it is out there. It’s not a niche anymore, I think…

Catherine Weetman  32:07

Yeah, not a hidden subject. And what’s your, what’s your favourite example that you know, that you’ve seen out there? Or is it a Camira one that you, that’s one of your favourites.

Paraskevi Fotoglou  32:19

I’m always saying about Camira as an example, and they all seem to be very impressed. And I think my favourite, as an example is definitely the bast fibre collection. Because it’s based on natural fibres, and like, not that much chemical process. And it is we’re talking about a very robust fibre. So had to pick one example that will be

Catherine Weetman  32:51

there, and, and easy to grow. So, you know, I think from an agriculture point of view, it’s, it’s, it’s really hopeful, but, you know, even in Britain, we could we could get, it’d be brilliant if we were, you know, became a nation. Really good at growing nettles, wouldn’t it and I’m thinking, you know, oh, yeah, insects love love nettles. So excellent. Yes. So Paraskevi, how can people find out more and get in touch with you?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  33:23

So yeah, I can leave my details down below. Let you know my LinkedIn…

Catherine Weetman  33:30

I’ll put your LinkedIn URL or whatever in the in the show notes. And what’s How do people find the Camira site on the on the internet?

Paraskevi Fotoglou  33:43

So yeah, I’ll leave all the details we have the website and also I’ve got to leave the SEAQUAL initiative

Catherine Weetman  33:53

That will be good, we can put that in the show notes as well the SEAQUAL initiative, or your information

Paraskevi Fotoglou  33:59

and we’re all in all communities in all social media. I’m not that I’m not very aware of them. I only use LinkedIn. But yeah, I think we’ve got Facebook, Instagram, you name it. What else is out there?

Catherine Weetman  34:15

Yeah, and just to help people find it if they’re not if they’ve not got a pen handy, so either go to the show notes at Circular Economy Podcast.com or have a look on the internet. And it’s spelt ca m i r a – Camira. So that should help people, people find you and see some of the brilliant stuff that Camira has got underway. So well good luck with your environmental product profiles for next year. And I suspect the year after that, and the year after that. I’m sure that will keep you out of out of mischief and and with everything else that Camira is leading the way on, in, in furnishing fabrics and so on and we look forward to seeing the next you know, great innovation coming from West Yorkshire. Thank you very much Paraskevi!

Paraskevi Fotoglou  35:04

Thank you very much Catherine. Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.