Ep. 58: AWARE’s tracer technology eliminates greenwashing Ankit Podcast

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Ep. 58: AWARE’s tracer technology eliminates greenwashing

This week’s guest on The WTiN Podcast is Feico van der Veen, founder and CEO of The Movement (a company offering sustainable fibre and yarn solutions for the textile industry) and its integrity technology company called AWARETM.

Jessica Owen
Hello. My name is Jessica Owen, and I'm the Deputy digital editor at WTiN, and this is the WTiN podcast. Over the next few weeks, I'll be talking to organizations about the topic of textile recycling. This is one of the most important solutions to the industry's waste and sustainability problems. So tune in to learn about new industry initiatives to create circular fashion upcoming textile recovery technologies, how best to communicate sustainability to consumers and much more. This week, I am joined by FICO van der Veen, who is the founder and CEO of the movement and its integrity technology company called aware. FICO talks about aware's four step process to embed traces into authentic recycled materials, how this solution can eliminate green washing, and how this type of technology could eventually become the new normal. Good morning, Feico, and welcome to the WTiN podcast. How are you?

Feico van der Veen
Good morning, Jessica, thanks for having me. I'm fine. Thank you. It's sunny in Amsterdam.

Jessica Owen
I was just gonna say, where are you based? At Amsterdam. Then, what's everything? What's everything like over there at the moment? No,

Feico van der Veen
it's the snow has become ice, and we are desperately waiting to go ice skating. That's a typical Dutch habit, but unfortunately, last few years, we couldn't do but it seems that this weekend, we can go out for ice skating. Yeah,

Jessica Owen
I don't know what's up with the weather this year. Maybe it's the lack of pollution from everyone staying at home. That's, you know, allowing the world to sort of become that bit colder. I don't know, but we've got a lot of snow here as well. Yeah, that's

Feico van der Veen
fantastic. It's winter wonderland.

Jessica Owen
Exactly. Yes. Um, okay, so Well, thank you for joining me today, because I'm very keen to learn about aware as you and your company have developed quite a unique way to ensure that recycled materials in particular are what they say they are. So first of all, then just tell me a bit about the technology and what you've created

Feico van der Veen
that's not easy to answer, but let me phrase in one sentence that, in fact, aware is in the traceability technology that proves sustainability claims of a final product. To be able to do that, we use destructive technologies like blockchain technology and physical tracer technology. But the most important thing, what you have to remember is that we really can prove the sustainability claims of a final product, right?

Jessica Owen
Okay, and I understand that there are four main steps to this, and the first one being that you you add micro tracer particles that somewhat like salt, yeah. So what are these Exactly? Yeah,

Feico van der Veen
these are very small nano particles. It's a kind of powder. You know, when you have sugar and you make it smaller then you have, we call it in Dutch, powder sugar. I don't know if that's the right translation, but it's very small. And these nano particles are kind of ceramic, and they, and they with a kind of light. They, they, it's a kind of pattern. And this pattern you can detect with an with a scanner. And these, these nano particles, we need a carrier to be able to put it in a material. And that carrier, for example, for recycled cotton, is viscose fiber or even recycled polyester fiber. And the carrier for filament yarn, for recycled polyester filament yarn, the carriers is an liquid master badge, and this is what we mix them with, the genuine, sustainable materials.

Jessica Owen
So who adds these particles to the fiber? Then do you sort of send batches to a mill and they do it? Or how does it work?

Feico van der Veen
The main thing, what we do is that we connect the final product, a garment, with original material. And the starting material is, of course, always the feedstock at the original feedstock. And this feedstock can be, let's say, a recycled polyester. So we want to prove that this original feedstock has been used in the final product. And that's why we put, already in the beginning, this nano particles, this tracer in the fiber, and it can go through all the supply chain and that we can read it in the final product. Now that we added in the stage where the spinner is spinning the yarn, and. With recycled cotton. They they buy cutting clips from post industrial cutting waste or from post consumer waste, and then they tear it into fiber. At that moment, they add a tracer, and then they spin the yarn for us. The starting point is always the yarn. Okay,

Jessica Owen
right? I see. So how long do they work for then? Anyway, just like washing the garment affects it at all,

Feico van der Veen
no, no, no. Nothing is infecting the affecting the traceability, and, in fact, the states, in them, in the in the final product, the whole product life span, and washing don't affect it.

Jessica Owen
Well, I think that's a good, really good points. I mean, you don't want that washing out, and then you've got no idea, do you if it's actually what it says it is

Feico van der Veen
exactly, especially with the recycled polyester, we had some challenges, because in recycled polyester, when you make a fabric, you you dye it. So what? What is this dye stuff doing with the traceability? And then we, we discovered that, for example, black carbon pigments has some we face some issues with that, but we solve that. But there are also coatings on fabrics. So all these things we have passed already, all these tests, so

Jessica Owen
once this tracer has been added, then, and you said, this is done at the spinning stage, so no special equipment is needed, then it just works as normal.

Feico van der Veen
Yeah, it works as normal to add the trace of fiber. As I said, it is fiber you can do by hand in the beginning, but when you do large scale, you need a kind of feeder to feed it in. But it's very simple. So that's a very simple equipment,

Jessica Owen
okay, and the final product, then you say that can be scanned to sort of reveal the true identity, okay, so is this a special scanner that you've developed? I mean, how does, how does that work? Again? Yeah,

Feico van der Veen
this is a decision spectrometer. This is an very sophisticated device. Is a USB scanner, so it's very small, and that's that's one of the biggest advantages. You don't have to send it to an laboratory to be able to detect the tracer, QC inspector of a final brand. Can do it during the quality control. You can do it in a warehouse, and our first aim is on the on the brands and retailers, and that they are sure that the right materials are in their final product, so that they are able to make the right claims to their consumers in the future. Our next step would be that we are also making an consumer interface, but that's that's a development for the coming years. The first step is for the brands and retailers. Okay,

Jessica Owen
well, that was one of my questions to ask. Who would be doing this scanning? Because it's one thing for companies to ensure that they're selling the right thing, but the consumer, they still might be skeptical. So having that sort of interface, I imagine, is something that's going to be really interesting to them,

Feico van der Veen
yes, but I think that that takes some time. And there are now QR codes, which is, in fact, nothing more than an access to a database. So consumers need to learn and understand it. I think it would take a few years before they are ready for it. So really, our first step is to give this opportunity for brands and retailers to prove 100% that the right materials have been used in their products.

Jessica Owen
Okay, so during scanning, then I understand that a unique fingerprint is detected and this is matched to data related to a token in what you call blockchain. So, yes, correct. Blockchain is a kind of well, it confuses me anyway. So are you able to explain how it works in this instance? Yeah,

Feico van der Veen
I always use a very simple example. Blockchain is nothing more than 100 1000s of computers doing the same calculation. There's no owner. All these, all these separate computers worldwide that can be in your somebody in your own house can be a miner of the blockchain, but all of them do the same calculation. And if and if the outcome is exactly the same, then it's then it's true. So we use the blockchain to create tokens. And that's the combination of AWARE. AWARE is not only the tracer. And because even with the tracer, I can I can detect the tracing the final product. But for example, if I put the of the spinner, puts the tracer material in the fiber. They spin the yarn. Yarn goes to the next phase in the supply chain. And weaving company, for example, the weaving company is weaving the fabric that you have to warp and the weft during the weaving, if they want to cheat, and they use normal cotton on the warp and on the weft. They use. Is a recycled cotton with a wear tracer. Then still in the final product, I can detect the tracer, but the quantity has been doubled, because if I produce 50,000 of kilo of yarn, that becomes 100,000 kilo of fabric. So there's an green washing of at least 50,000 kilo. So that's why you we need a mass balance system which which tells exactly that 50,000 kilo can never become 50,001 and that's why we use the blockchain. So essentially,

Jessica Owen
what you're doing then is going one step further than those companies who offer, say, QR codes on tags, for example. So you can completely eliminate any doubt and greenwashing, yes,

Feico van der Veen
we can, for 100% and the main reason is because, you know, with the QR code, with certification, there's no connection between the material and the certification. It's unguarded during the production process, even with a QR code. And even when this QR code is managed on blockchain, there's no connection with the material. As I can I can scan a QR code, and the next factory can scan a QR code, and the next factory can scan the QR code. So according to that blockchain and the QR code, I need to have a certain quantity of materials in my warehouse, but if it's not there, then it's not there. So that's so blockchain alone is just a database. It's not a self regulated system that checks all data for correctness. So that means rubbish in this rubbish out and the QR code is nothing more than an entry level to a database. So that's that's why the combination of and the tracer and blockchain is for us the most, the most critical factor to be 100% proof? Yeah,

Jessica Owen
definitely. And so I understand that other data can also be stored in your technology, such as, sort of the impact it's having microfiber release is that, is that right? Yes,

Feico van der Veen
that's right, sustainability is just, in fact, an hollow phrase is used everywhere, but sustainability is nothing is sustainable. I think a tree is sustainable, but everything has to do with impact. So if you have material A, and you can replace it by material B, which has a lower impact, that should be sustainable. But sustainability, that's a claim. Something is sustainable because I use recycled cotton, and that's also a claim. And because I use recycled cotton, we save water. I think everybody knows that one, one kilo of normal cotton is about 9800 liters of water. So we say per kilo one 9800 liters of water. That's, that's, in fact, the most important claim you make. But if you want to make that claim, you need to understand X. You need to prove exactly how many kilo you have, using your final product. And if there's a direct connection with the original, genuine, recycled feedstock. So that's why we use the tracer, and the moment we put the yarn to the blockchain, in fact, we create a kind of, what they call a digital twin. And so we have an physical yarn with physical certifications, the physical characteristics of a yarn can be the color, the composition, the thickness of the yarn, and these are physical characteristics of the yarn. Secondly, you have this physical you need to have physical certification, like the first certification of a third party, confirming, yes, this is made from genuine recycled feedstock. That's the first certification. It can be from any nominated third party provider. This is a physical certification. Second certification is from us. That's That's an aware certificate that we could detect the tracer in the yarn. But you can also add a social compliance certificate, but at that moment, we also add the impact data of that specific yarn, so when it's made from recycled cotton within certain blend, then we exactly add already in the digital twin, the impact data, and this digital twin is added to the blockchain, and this is what they call a token. Bitcoin is also a token. So this token is representing one kilo of the digital twin of the physical yarn and the physical documents. Are you still with me?

Jessica Owen
I think so. Yeah, you're definitely making it difficult to crack if anyone wanted to mess with the data.

Feico van der Veen
No, yeah, exactly, and that's, and that's at the end. The most important is the most important that that if you have to prove that's really the claim you make, this is from sustainable material, because I use the sustainable i. A used in low impact material, and that's why we saved X amount of water energy, CO two, you make a claim, and can you guard this claim? And with our system, you can, because the moment the final brand has these tokens in their digital wallet, they have access to all this original data, including supply chain mapping.

Jessica Owen
So this problem, then regarding sort of greenwashing and and, you know, trustworthiness and everything, is that why you started the company? I mean, what made you start? It was

Feico van der Veen
an combination, combination of the frustration about all these fake claims intentionally, unintentionally, but also the struggle brands and retailers have in proving that things are right, and it was really struggling, So that's why we developed the system to to have an answer for and greenwashing and to make it a very easy to use system, because the brand retailer doesn't have to do anything. It's just logging into the system at the end. Yeah,

Jessica Owen
exactly. So can I ask what your background was before? Then, have you always been in textiles and fashion? Then, yes,

Feico van der Veen
I did. Since 1996 I was having my own company producing fashion accessories for big brands and retailers worldwide. So I have quite an extensive knowledge about supply chains. So I also know what can happen in a supply chain if you start with a fiber, and that fiber goes into a truck warehouses and before it ends up in the final product, sometimes there's six to 12 months in between. In these six to 12 months, a lot of things can happen. So yeah, so this understanding of supply chains and the struggle I saw for all these brands and retailers to implement sustainable solutions made me develop this technology. I mean,

Jessica Owen
was there sort of a turning point for you did? Was there a mishap or a confusion somewhere in the supply chain? Was there an incident that made you think, no, I've really got to do something about this now,

Feico van der Veen
no, it was not a major incident. It was more, yeah, as I said, it's the struggle. Because we produce already products for these big brands and retailers. That means that I was visiting them everywhere in the world, and they all all had the same struggle. They have an agenda to move to sustainability, and I really believe that they really take it's very serious. But they buy products, and they sell products, but, but you buy a product from a factory who is, who is, in fact, nothing more than creating that product made from materials coming from water sources. And so this connection between tier one, brand retailer and tier four, the spinner, there's no connection. They had no control about it. And that's that's why I, based on experience I have that, for example, the moment reach compliances came in the Netherlands or even in Europe, even Asia, you really need to go back, really, to the main material.

Jessica Owen
So you primarily work with recycled polyester and recycled cotton. As you say, why did you decide to focus on recycled materials when I assume the tracer could be sort of added to anything really? Yeah,

Feico van der Veen
that's correct. Now the most important is that we believe that recycled cotton is the cotton for the future. It has the highest impact savings. As I said, with one kilo of recycled cotton, you save more than 9000 liters of water, but also more than five square meters of land. That land you don't need to use for cotton, but you can use for food crops, but also no need, so no use for fertilizer, no pesticides, and in 90% of the cases, no dyeing needed, because the cotton is already dyed. And also, we believe that the future cotton is in the wardrobe of the consumers as garments. And we really want to stimulate to use recycled cotton and to get this post consumer garments out of the wardrobe and into the supply chain, into the to the supply chain of cotton materials, and for a recycled pot polyester, the biggest impact is use of post consumer water bottles, which are collected and used as yarn and not ending up in rivers and oceans. Well, I

Jessica Owen
completely understand why you're doing that then. But do you have any plans to maybe apply your technology to other fibers and materials? Has anyone come to you and said, Actually, I'd really love to use this?

Feico van der Veen
Yeah, almost every day i. Yeah, so, so it will happen Absolutely. But you have to understand, we are in we are a startup. We are a clean tech startup. We started April 2020 we put it on the market. And the biggest mistake I can make now as entrepreneur is is jumping on all these opportunities and get drowned in opportunities. So focus is really important. We want to prove first in recycled cotton, in that niche market, we also do already recycle polyester, and then step by step, we will jump into hemp, Lyocell, bamboo viscose, recycled letter. There are so many applications possible, right?

Jessica Owen
So you said there that you're, you're a startup, and you've not even really been going for one year yet. So, but I mean, are you working with any brands yet? Can you tell me about anyone that you're working with who's adopted your technology?

Feico van der Veen

Yeah, there's some we are working at this moment on some big pilot crop programs with some big names, which we will release soon. But for us, we had opportunity work to start working since September with sing Dao. That's That's a company from the Netherlands, which is one of the leaders in the world on on gifts and premiums, and they have also a line of bags. They created the bobby backpack. It's a famous bag. If you Google it, you will find it. And they adopted the technology and that it's as a kind of launching customer. And that was very important for us, because then we could bring it really into action, from an from an from an idea to a business concept to really and proof of business. And that that worked very well. So we were able to put it in recycle polyester and recycled cotton the but also the whole system of blockchain and creating tokens, transfer tokens. So the test phase have been gone, and now it's reality. And for singdao, it worked very well because because of aware, their sales is going up on these products. So it's now, as a matter of for us, at this moment time and people are crucial, and not, not the demand.

Jessica Owen
Well, it's interesting. You say that their sales have gone up because I was wondering, sort of, if consumers are that aware of things like this, or whether it's actually more a fact that it's just sort of added value. And that's, it's not the sustainability, necessarily, but it's just this, you know, a cool technology. It's adding value to their product and and that's another reason why is they're interested in it, especially

Feico van der Veen
this company is supplying also to business, to business. For example, there was, I think there was a bank in in somewhere in Scandinavia. They wanted to order 30,000 of these bags, but, but also this bank is buying backpacks, and they have also in sustainability strategy, and they want to have recycled polyester. But if nobody can prove that's really recycled polyester used, and sing Dao is able to do that. It's it's really successful as an ingredient brand, whereas an ingredient brand that it adds value to that product and it will influence a decision. I agree with you that consumers at this moment, I think it takes a few more years, but at this moment, the brands are taking, really taking their responsibility, but the consumers, like generation C are also demanding for full transparency, and they made a big change in the food industry, and we believe that next is the textile industry. We are in in a transition period towards a new economy and society that's based on transparency and purpose.

Jessica Owen
Definitely. I agree with you there. I hear that a lot, actually. So forgive me, I'm not actually very familiar with this company, Saint Dowell, but they're using it in their in their rucksacks. I think you said I don't know if they have any other products, but I mean, is this something that you know, brands could adopt for one, one particular product, and then it sells really well and they'll end up just integrating it into everything that they sell Exactly,

Feico van der Veen
exactly? And that was another, another experience, also for us, they started with this recycled polyester in the backpacks. And for we started with one line, and then two lines, more products, more products. And now almost all the recycled polyester products they use are with the wear, but they also introduced cotton caps made from recycled cotton with wear traceability technology, COVID. Of them, bags, caps, bags, towels. But the thing is that when you start with full transparency, you cannot go back anymore. You cannot say this, this product is fully traceable, but this product isn't. But I also understand that companies start with a pilot. Let's try with one product, and then step by step by step. It's like a waterfall. It becomes more and more and more,

Jessica Owen
right? And can I ask, is it more expensive to include the tracer particles and your technology, or is it actually quite affordable?

Feico van der Veen
Yes, it is. It is more expensive because these trace particles are expensive. But blockchain, as is, is also expensive. We are using open source blockchain so public accessible, and so that all data is open to the plug to the public is not a private blockchain and and that means that the security has to be high, and that means it's it's also expensive, but also to develop and blockchain access is very expensive. It's around 1 million euro to do to develop it, so these costs need to be implemented in the price. However, we calculated that, for example, for a sweater, that the increase is not more than 2% so and I've read a lot of reviews, and it seems that consumers are willing to pay up to 20% more if it's really sustainable, right?

Jessica Owen
Yeah. I mean, I have to admit, even myself, like I'm now trying to buy more sustainably, and I have to admit I'm more I am happier, to sort of buy that, you know, buy something that's more expensive and and with that, if, especially if a product has something like these tracer particles and this added value that we talked about, you're also going to keep it for a longer length of time. I imagine could be,

Feico van der Veen
of course, I don't know we are focusing on fast fashion, because we believe that in in fast fashion, you can really make an impact, because there, that's where the quantities are. But I think in general, consumers are much more aware of what what they buy. I think in the in the in the future, people will buy less, and that's and that's fantastic. And with our technology a little glimpsy to the future is that we might see a future where where a consumer can scan the product by themselves in the shop. So they buy and sweat are made from recycled cotton. They go to a scanner in the shop. They scan the fabric. The scanner is detecting the tracer and and transferred the digital tokens in the blockchain to the wallet, digital wallet of the of the consumer, which is on their mobile phone. So then the Consumer Direct access to all the related, related data. Was the producer of the products, was the Weaver, who was the spinner? What is exactly the composition of the materials? What are the impact claims? And after after use, or they bring it back for recycling, let's say to the same shop, then the same shop can scan it again and know exactly the content, the composition of the of the of the fabric, and that the tokens will go back to the to the to the brand or retailer, and in return, the consumer can get a discount of 15% or of the next purchase. But that specific product we know exactly the composition. So for recycling, it's much more easier now I'm talking about five to 10 years later?

Jessica Owen
Well, let me just stick with this sort of you know, vision you have then. So if products with your tracer are recycled and then perhaps blended with another material, does that matter? Because you can still pick up that a certain percentage of it is still definitely, you know what you say it is, yeah,

Feico van der Veen
the if it's blending during weaving or knitting, that's something we don't put on blockchain. So we only put on blockchain the yarn, original yarn, so if there's a blend in the yarn, for example, recycled cotton is often blended with other materials because it's still not strong enough. So let's say you blended recycled polyester, or even normal polyester or a normal cotton, that blend is being put on blockchain, and the impact is only calculated on the recycle part. So the yarn is always the starting point for us, if it's blended afterwards or replaced, yeah, then, then, even when it's blended, as I said, with with, during the wee thing, then still the claim can only be on the quantity we have originally put on the blockchain, even we even we can detect the tracer. And so that's why this. Combination of and Tracer and blockchain is crucial to be 100% right?

Jessica Owen
So going into 510, even more years time, do you think we'll ever get to a point where all of our clothes will be traceable, whether it's thanks to aware and your technology or whether it's thanks to another company that does something similar,

Feico van der Veen
absolutely, I think this will become the new norm,

Jessica Owen
really. Okay, that's interesting. I mean, we said there five to 10 years. Do you reckon this will be much longer, though? 

Feico van der Veen
Yeah, it takes. It takes time implementing sustainability. Takes a lot of time. You cannot change whole business completely, because that will affect a lot of businesses, but also a lot of countries, a lot of workers. So it takes time. But our we believe that in the age of technology, information, ignorance is a choice, and the technology is available, so if you don't use it, yeah, that's that's a choice, right?

Jessica Owen
Well, finally, then the last question that I wanted to ask you is, what are your plans for this year and beyond? I mean, you're still a new company, but I imagine you've got a whole host of things that you want to be getting on with.

Feico van der Veen
Yes, for us, the most, most important is at this moment, as I said, is, is time and people to be able to to hire more people, to improve the marketing communication in the branding, which is really important, and trying to explain what we do. So we are at this at this stage in the funding round, and we are, we are talking to investors to to have at least the money to do this investment in people and technology. Business wise, we are working on some big projects at this moment that will be released in a few weeks time. And for us, this moment, 2020 is just focus on just having this focus on what we have started, and we have started with, with nominating spinners. So we have 10 spinners worldwide help them to implement it within their supply chain, and at the same time talking to brands and retailers and explaining the whole technology. So we create a push and a pull at the same time. So that's, that's, that's important for us to help with the supply chain integration, and then step by step, yeah, I think we have worked enough for the coming five years.

Jessica Owen
Yeah. Well, it sounds like you've got some really exciting times ahead of you, absolutely. Well, unfortunately, I think that's all we've got time for today. But FICO, it's been brilliant to have you on the show. I mean, aware is really onto something here, and it's got me excited about, you know, what clothes could be like in the future. So thank you for telling me all about it.

Feico van der Veen
No problem at all. Thank you so much for having me.