How valupa is making the fashion industry more sustainable
What would a blouse or shirt be without buttons, our jeans without zips and bags without eyelets or handles? These small parts of garments are often overlooked and yet represent an immense proportion of the total mass of fashion production. Consumers or companies who value sustainable textiles rarely have them in mind. Fabrics may be certified as environmentally friendly, but the buttons or eyelets are still largely made of petroleum-based plastic. There is a big gap in the materiality of these small parts that has hardly been taken into account until now. Yet the fashion industry is considered the second biggest environmental problem of our age. Its annual CO² emissions are estimated at around 2.1 billion tonnes, more than the combined emissions of the economies of France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The MediaTech Hub Accelerator start-up valupa is working in Potsdam on an alternative concept to fast fashion and on producing sustainable fastening solutions that are compostable: for example, petroleum is replaced by polylactic acid which is obtained from such renewable raw materials as corn. With its focus on the circular economy and sustainability, valupa is in the right place at the right time. The fashion industry needs to rethink, production is increasingly being relocated back to Europe, and value chains are being made more transparent. Because it’s not only the supply bottlenecks during the Coronavirus pandemic that have shown that we have to become less dependent on the Asian market. Sustainable aspects, safe working conditions and shorter supply chains are also becoming increasingly important here.
“Sustainability has a lot to do with product development. It’s the combination: the design can lead to the product being recyclable. In turn, it depends on the material used whether harmful substances end up in the environment or not. These are the two strands that accompany us every step of the way,” says CEO Ulrike Böttcher.
Rapid prototyping thanks to 3D printing
valupa is currently working on material research and prototyping. Together with team member Faustine Rolle, a bio-chemist, small batches are being developed and buttons, belt buckles and pendants are being produced using injection moulding. The testing takes place in the labs of the Science Park in Golm and there are also 3D printers and the injection moulding machine in her office in the MediaTech Hub Space so that she can test the first material samples on site. In addition, digitisation is an important lever in promoting sustainability in the fashion industry. The needs can be produced on demand via planning tools. This counteracts overproduction and will also appeal in the future to large corporations who are currently still having to resort to Asian mass-produced goods. They are increasingly addressing the issue of sustainability – and, apart from the positive aspects for the environment, this is inevitably also a marketing tool that should not be underestimated. In any case, valupa does not see itself as being a competitor for the Asian market; its products should not and cannot compete with those prices. Located in the medium price segment, valupa convinces through quality and transparency.
“Our advantages are that 3D printing already enables you to develop very good prototypes, prepare a mould for injection moulding and respond directly to individual wishes,” says CPO Nina Kahmke says. Whether it’s branding, colour or surface: the printing method and digital design processes mean that the start-up can cater for different customer wishes including the production of small batches. In the long term, an online configurator should help to digitise such processes even further. Thus valupa has two mainstays since large-scale production is also a goal. At the moment, the founders are talking to business angels and start-up networks about fundraising.
“We want to ensure that there isn’t any greenwashing involved in the large-scale production. To do this, many steps have to be interlocked and it takes attention to detail to be able to exclude materials like petroleum in all the steps of the production process,” says Ulrike Böttcher. Mass production with injection moulding is different from that for 3D printing. Industrial production and scaling up with the ambition to use bio-materials is therefore the next challenge. But it’s not for nothing that the name valupa stands for “value” and “parts” – because every part, no matter how small, the accessory on every bag, jacket or backpack has a value when it comes to a holistic rethinking in the fashion industry.
You can make sure that you don’t miss the latest news from the start-up and stay up-to-date about current events by following valupa in the social networks here:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/valupa
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_valupa_/
Website: https://www.valupa.de/
More about the MTH Blog
The media technologies of the future are already being used today – not only in the entertainment sector but in a wide variety of industries. For our MediaTech Hub Potsdam blog, we talk to tech enthusiasts, entrepreneurs and researchers once a month and tell the stories behind their innovative business models, ideas, projects and collaborations.
