Ep. 67: Material Innovation Initiative: Accelerating next-gen materials Ankit Podcast

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Ep. 67: Material Innovation Initiative: Accelerating next-gen materials

This week’s guest on The WTiN Podcast is Sydney Gladman, chief scientific officer at the Material Innovation Initiative (MII).

Speaker 1: WTiN
Speaker 2: Sydney Gladman

Speaker 1
Hello, my name is Jessica Owen, and I'm the Deputy digital editor at WTiN. And this is the WTiN podcast. Join me and my guests every week as we talk about new and interesting innovations from across the textile and apparel industry. Whether it's talking to sustainable startups quizzing experts on the latest research and development, or chatting to companies about their most recent products, you can rest assured that the WTiN podcasts will connect you with everything you need to know. This week, I am joined by Sydney Gladman, who is the Chief Scientific Officer at the materials Innovation Initiative. Sydney talks about the company's mission to accelerate the development of next gen materials. The research and industry relationship building at the organisation is conducting, how the team is aiming to provide clarity through environmental impact assessments, and her thoughts and how the next gen materials industry will evolve over the coming years.

Hello, Sydney, and welcome to the WTiN podcast. How are you doing?

Speaker 2
I'm doing wonderful. Thank you so much, Jess, for having me.

Speaker 1
Oh, you're very welcome. I mean, thank you so much for coming on the show, because I'm so excited to learn more about the materials Innovation Initiative. I mean, the organisation is doing some great work, and it put on such a great event recently. So yeah, I'm thrilled that we can speak today. 

Speaker 2
Oh, I appreciate that. Yeah, we're super excited to talk more about what we're doing. And I'm like, I'm so thanks for having me.

Speaker 1
So I mean, MI was actually founded just less than a year ago now, I think in May 2020. And I understand that you guys exist to sort of accelerate the development of next gen materials, specifically those that sort of can replace animal derived materials. And so do you mind just explaining a bit more about this and the problem regarding animal derived materials and why the work you're doing is just so important? 

Speaker 2
Absolutely, I'd be happy to explain. So at MI we envision a world where the materials we interact with every day, from our shoes to our car seats, are produced in a way that allows animals the planet and our future generations to thrive. And to some of those key drivers are these animal direct materials, in particular, have enormously negative environmental impact. And they were also a lot of issues with animal welfare associated with their production. In addition, you know, consumers are really demanding more sustainable alternatives, have said they'll even pay higher prices, to make them beyond the market. So there's actually like a business opportunity here for innovation to transform this industry with, you know, some real market opportunity. So I can give a little bit more perspective, I think, on the environmental impact if you'd like. So, raw materials account for approximately 75% of a brand like a fashion brands, total environmental footprint. That number varies, you know, depending on who you talk to, but that's a that's a general average that we've seen. And if you look at, you know, environmental assessments for materials, there's, there's a tool out there called the Higg index, which I'm sure you're probably familiar with. It's a tool for assessing kind of high level overview, environmental footprint of textiles and materials, used primarily in the fashion industry. And on this in this Higg index, the LSI score, the material Sustainability Index score that they put out, they actually lists silk, alpaca wool, leather and regular wool as four of the top five most environmentally damaging materials. And that top five only cotton is the only non animal derived material on the list. So you can kind of see, you know, that that these materials do actually have quite a big impact. Lots of people have, I know, some issues with whether the index Higg index is really capturing sustainability properly. So I'm not gonna really go into that, but but I think that you can still see if you look at the underlying data that a lot of these materials have has some significant issues with with their environmental footprint. And in addition to that, like I mentioned, the animal welfare can't be ignored, right, so 3.6 billion animals are killed, sheared or plucked each year to make leather for fur wool down and exotic skins. And I think it's estimated that about a trillion silkworms are boiled alive each year to produce silk. So yeah, so it's a lot of vehicles that are going into making these materials and I think we could do better by them. And you know what, something that's really come to the forefront as we've seen from the recent still, sadly, ongoing COVID 19 pandemic, that zoonotic diseases these are diseases that jump from animals Humans are a real threat to the health and safety of our global society. And so if we could reduce our reliance on animal agriculture to create food or other products like materials, we shouldn't be able to reduce the risk of these future diseases. So I think I don't want to go through COVID-19. Again, I think that other people don't as well. So this is one potential pathway to like, reduce that risk. And then there's just a few more points to make, you know, materials production, it hasn't numerous human health and fair labour issues. I'm also not going to go into a lot of detail there. But I think everyone's aware that the textile industry is is plagued with, with some issues here. And leather, and some of these other materials, in particular, have been shown to have particularly some problems in those areas. And like I mentioned before, really like consumers are demanding this, like at the brands are coming to us like, my consumers want this, but what do I do, I don't have anything to give them instead. So it's up to scientists, innovators, investors, and brands to kind of all work together to make that change happen. And that's, that's where I wants to come together to be this hub for the creation of sustainable, high performance alternatives to these animal derived materials in fashion, automotive, Home Goods, every word that they're used.

Speaker 1
I mean, those are some staggering statistics, aren't they? I mean, it's funny, because, I don't know years ago, for in my experience, there was a lot of talk around, you know, leather, we should move away to like faux leather, or just plant base or whatever. And recently, the conversation has turned to more synthetic materials and plastic pollution that sometimes I feel like we forget about the animal derived materials. I mean, maybe that's just me. So it's, it's really crazy to hear some of these statistics, and I still can't believe some of it's still going on, if I'm honest. But I'm quite naive.

Speaker 2
Yeah, I think it is interesting. You know, for for example, I think most people have just assumed that there's no for anymore, right? Because, yeah, the attack I think of the food industry has been going on for a very long time. But no, it's still a pretty big market, you'd be surprised. So yeah, we want to help you know, see if we can turn that around. And you know, the best way to do that is to provide viable alternatives, right real alternatives that are that are good, that have high performance but are also sustainable.

Speaker 1
Yeah, definitely. So before we go on any further Do you mind just telling me a bit more about the team at EMI actually, because I mean, the two people he found deer I think come from the food industry like I'm looking at plant based foods. So I mean, is the reason they've decided to develop him i because they can just transfer that knowledge over to textiles and materials

Speaker 2
out it's pretty much what happened. I could go into a little more detail of the story there. So am I was founded by Stephanie Downes and Nicole Rawling. Stephanie is a serial entrepreneur. And one of her more recent ventures good dot grew to become the largest plant based meat company in India. And she attributes some of her success to partnering with an organisation called The Good Food Institute. GFI l abbreviate. That's where she met Nicole. Nicole was leading the international division of GFI. So GFI is a nonprofit aimed at accelerating innovation in the alternative protein market for food. And they're considered the expert sort of resource hub for this alternative protein space. And, you know, Stephanie, haven't worked with GFI, she really started thinking she's a serial entrepreneur, like I said, so she's always looking for more opportunities. Stephanie had long considered that animal derived materials would kind of be like the next industry primed for disruption. And with Nicole's experience, at GFI, and then Stephanie's entrepreneurial experience. They decided, you know, let's let's make an impact through a new nonprofit focused on materials. People say I'm from the south, so people say if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And GFI is bottle was really successful. So Stephanie, and Nicole were like, Let's build the GFI of materials, essentially, you know, that's, that's how the material Innovation Initiative was born. Right? Yeah. And as far as the rest of the team, we actually really just recently filled out a lot of our departments. So I just came out a few months ago by myself as chief scientific officer. And our leads it branded engagement, communications, innovation, fashion, design, and development have also all come out in like the last few months or even weeks. So we're really building out this team to be able to tackle, you know, the entire ecosystem. 

Speaker 1
I mean, it sounds like you've tapped into so many different areas, which is so important when you're tackling such a huge issue like this. Yes. So I mean, to accelerate the development of these next gen materials, as you say, EMI does this in several different ways that I can tell from your website, and from that event I attended, and one of them is connecting entrepreneurs and startups with investors, as you said earlier, that's quite important it is investment. So do you mind just explain Can you sort of how you go about doing this?

Speaker 2
Sure, absolutely. So I will leave a lot of this detail to our Chief Innovation Officer, Elaine Sue, she's gonna explain a lot of stuff, her upcoming reports that are coming out. And honestly, if you wanted to have her on the podcast, I'm sure she'd be happy to do. So I'll just preface by saying she's really an expert on this topic. And I'm just like the nerdy scientist, but I will go over a lot of the basics. So, so investment is really critical to drive innovation in the next gen space. In order to bring a novel material to scale, there is a lot of r&d and manufacturing scale up that requires capital expenditure. And that's why I as a whole department dedicated to be a hub between investors and innovators. So connecting entrepreneurs, startups and investors, all of this is really about relationship building. We identify mission aligned investors that understand really, what are they looking for in their investments in terms of you know, their funding stage? Or bouts? What technologies are they excited about? And we kind of build this, let's say catalogue of them, basically, the investors on hand that we know are interested, and we connect them with startups, entrepreneurs, innovators, you know, by understanding the startups needs as well, right? You know, where are they? Are they looking for, you know, just a late round of funding? Are they brand new, and they need seed funding? What is their technology? What challenges might they have, and when we find the right fit, we can we can bring those people together and find that it's a much more successful connection than kind of just spewing your pitches out to the world. And in doing so, we also really provide a lot of advisory services to entrepreneurs on how to seek funding, how to pitch their company to investors, we actually do pitch deck reviews, more often than not, and then I also provide scientific advice if needed, you know, if they're kind of hitting a snag with their, with their technology platform, if you know, their prototype is struggling, you know, I can kind of come in and provide scientific advice. I spent five years before this role as a consultant, a global scientific engineering consultants. So, you know, basically, you get my, like, consulting services for free, if you're an entrepreneur, and you work with EMI, so it's a pretty good opportunity. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's, there's a lot of excitement. Investors are really interested, you know, in next gen materials. So I just want to say like, there's some times we were like, Oh, do people really even want this? Right, you know, we really see it a lot. Elaine will detail this more in an upcoming report. But I think, without even counting, there's been at least a billion dollars of investment in the next gen material companies that we follow. Just this week, modern meadow closed their Series C for $130 million. So pretty big investment. In Wagner, Beto is using precision fermentation technology to create novel protein building blocks that can go into alternative leather. So it's really exciting technology that they're working on.

Speaker 1
I mean, yeah, that was actually going to be one of my questions like, Are people even bothered about next gen materials? I mean, he wants that for me. But that's so interesting. And I'm so pleased, actually, it's so encouraging to know that

Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. So I mean, really, I think it's just the people are seeing it as an untapped innovation space. Right. Um, we haven't had a tonne of innovation in textiles materials, since maybe since synthetics came on the market in the mid 1900s. Right. And I think, you know, like I said before, after the success of the alternative protein market, people aren't really seeing the parallels that you could kind of do the same thing with materials that we're doing with food. And it's really about using the drivers of innovation, sustainability, and performance to create a new generation of products. I was laughing, I think there's probably a lot of investors out there that are sad that they passed on Impossible Burger or Beyond Meat, because they're now household names. But if you're an investor that is that about that, you know, there's still time to get on the ground floor for materials, right, we still haven't determined who's going to be the Beyond Meat of next gen materials. So it's kind of a big opportunity right now,

Speaker 1
as I mean, everyone I speak to and not the events I attend, people keep predicting that these are going to be mainstream in the next 10 years or so. I mean, so if you can tap into that now. I mean, as you say, it's an incredible business opportunity, isn't it? Really?

Speaker 2
Absolutely. And that's, that's where we think you can drive change. You can just tell people, it's the right thing to do, or the good thing to do, you know, you need to present them with the business case. And yeah, it's there. It exists.

Speaker 1
Yeah, exactly. So I mean, as you said, your colleague will be presenting a report. That's much more in depth about this, but off the top of your head. I mean, what advice would you have to companies to be seen as investable? Is it just things like being able to explain what you're doing? Explain the problem that you can solve? Is it as simple as that or are there any sort of tips that you'd have?

Speaker 2
Yeah, I'd say the biggest tip overall, we had that providing to budding entrepreneurs who are seeking investment is to focus on the science and technology. And there's kind of three ways we often, you know, highlight this need. First, your donation should rely on scientifically robust technologies, or in order to compete. I mean, I think as we all see, it's like, it's really getting high tech, honestly, what what everyone's doing. And so you need to have that science behind you, or you're not going to compete, you need to have a clear scientific plan, you know, a vision, you need to have a prototype, preferably, in order for investors to get ready to sign on for any significant investment. And then the second piece of the puzzle is intellectual property. You know, it's kind of an interesting space where people don't always realise that they might need this. But having patents, whether it's applications or granted is going to be really powerful for investors, it gives them confidence that your technology is not going to be immediately replaced by competition. And then the third piece of advice, which I feel like we have to give more often than I thought we would need to is that if your company relies on a novel, like its technology platform, which it should, that would be great. One of your co founders should have a scientific background, like we often see kind of the the business leads thinking they can do it all themselves. But if you're relying on science as your product, then you need a scientific co founder. So overall, though, I would say our biggest piece of advice is just come to us for help, we can definitely help so, but always keep science and technology at the forefront. Right?

Speaker 1
So anyone listening today see might be a startup or they've got an idea or something for next year material, just get in touch with you guys. And you can just basically hold their hand and hopefully get them some investment in some help. Absolutely.

Speaker 2
That is the goal. 

Speaker 1
Okay, I see. So aside from assisting these connections, then am I also conducts a lot of research and also make sort of these reports that you do available. I mean, as you said, your colleague is going to be talking about one very soon. So I mean, what areas of research, are you interested in? What sort of reports have you been looking at so far? I mean, you've only been going less than a year. So I mean, I don't know how much you've really done so far. Yeah,

Speaker 2
I've been we've been pretty busy. So we still have, we do have some stuff available now. And some things coming out very soon. So really, our ultimate goal is to provide resources for you know, the entire broad next gen ecosystem. And because of that, we have a lot of audiences. And so we tried to make sure our resources could have wide reaching kind of potential. So some examples of the things that we kind of work on would be industry perspective, content, that might benefit, you know, brands, investors, innovators, that's, you know, I'm speaking about my colleague lane, that would be kind of her area, and I will highlight, she's coming out with a report soon that I can talk more about if we're interested. The other area would be scientific content. So this is mostly in my wheelhouse as the leader of the science department. So this is content that might assist scientists, industry, researchers, innovators. And I'll talk about an upcoming report in just a second that I'm going to be having come out in a few weeks. We also have consumer research reports. These really are broad community, you know, reaching, and those are already available on our website. So the the few that we have available, you can see we have a tactile logical assessment on mycelium derived leather, material performance and sourcing report on the incumbent bovine leather to help guide kind of, well, what is sort of the standard right of leather. If I wanted to try to replicate it, where would I start. And then we also have to consumer research reports on preferences for how you might name some of these next gen materials. So what the nomenclature, and then we have another one that is a US consumer perception report on the use of leather alternatives. And in the next months, we're gonna have a companion Chinese consumer preference report. So we can see how that those two communities might vary kind of and how they feel. By and large, those Consumer Reports show that consumers are ready and willing to adopt next gen materials. So you can go check it out for yourself on our website, it's all publicly available. And you can sign up for our newsletter, which will help you get notified of upcoming reports as well. Yeah, and one other big area that we're really excited about that I think that you know, you might have seen during our next gen ed biobased materials Summit, is that we're really trying to form a consortium on environmental impact assessments for this next gen industry. This is kind of a huge emergent area for us. During the conference, both threads they the really awesome announcement, that they're our first external member of this consortium and they graciously donated $10,000 towards the hiring of a full time environmental data scientist at EMI. So this person would we hire them very soon, is going to provide clarity on what makes material more or less sustainable. You know, avoiding the greenwashing that has been a little bit of a concern for some of these materials. It's their person is going to find the best ways to collect this environmental data admit from You shed and transform that data into reliable transparent assessments such as lifecycle analyses. And we played have a lot of content basically surrounding this work. And honestly, if anybody out there listening is excited about this and believes in our work, you can visit our website and donate. We are a philanthropic organisation.

Speaker 1
Yeah. I mean, as you said, I did attend that event. And I heard the announcement. And it's such it's such a good idea. I mean, just in the last maybe month or two alone, I've, like attended a few webinars and people keep talking about these LCIs. And, and originally, I was like, Oh, that's great. If you have an LCA, that, that's great. But then when you look into it, you can compare different materials, and maybe you're not comparing the right things. And then I think this conference, I think it was the CEO at natural fibre welding, I think he made a point about at Luke have a house I think his name is, and he made a point about the data is actually like, the data is just not brilliant when it comes to these LCA. So I mean, these are the sorts of things we're going to be tackling hopefully, absolutely,

Speaker 2
that's exactly the goal. And everything that we do will be publicly available, which is the big advantage behind any paywalls. And we really, you know, we're going to be bringing together a lot of players, we have a few more other next gen companies interested in kind of helping out with, you know, cutting and being aligned on the methodologies. And the way we're gonna acquire this data and present it. So it's going to be really like a group effort, which we're excited about. Hmm.

Speaker 1
So I mean, just off the top of my head, I'm thinking now so. So companies when they create these materials, they're not they don't have to do an LCA, do they? But are you saying that they probably should, because you know, it's just a really great way of differentiating your material and explaining why you should be using it over something else.

Speaker 2
Yeah, so really, the brands want that LCA, or at least the data behind it, because there have very strict metrics typically with for incorporating new materials these days. And so the problem that a lot of these materials, companies that are, you know, new startups and counters, they might not have the funds to conduct those games, they're kind of expensive to go through consulting services, or they might not be ready. So if you're really new, and you're still kind of in the prototype or early pilot production stage, you might not be able to properly predict what your production level kind of, you know, footprint is going to be, it's going to change wildly. And when they're at r&d, they're kind of completely altering their formulation and processes constantly. So your LCA could be obsolete within like a week, you know. So we're aiming to kind of come together and see if we can find sub, what we call anticipatory. You know, type LCA is where it's, we can kind of predict where you will likely fall, you know, with, like, kind of ranges of data is where we're looking to fall and say, Alright, even though you're not there yet, based on what we understand of your technology, this is likely to be, you know, the data range that you're going to have for these given factors, like, you know, greenhouse gas emissions, or, you know, water usage, things like that. So that's kind of, right.

Speaker 1
I mean, I think that sounds brilliant anyway, I mean, I'm not I'm not a startup myself, but I can just imagine how useful that will be to people. Because I mean, startups don't have any money, do they? So the fact that this information is free, and can help them is just great. Yeah, yeah. And

Speaker 2
I just want to plug two reports that are coming on, in addition to that kind of content, which is my, my report I'm very excited about so I have to plug it. It's called Silk silk. So it's a report that is outlining kind of the scientific principles, all the way down to kind of the composition and structure of silk fibres, and how that plays into the really special luxurious properties we find in silk. And it's going to outline the challenges and opportunities for innovation, we're going to basically be putting out reports for all of the kind of uncovered materials that we're looking at. But this is going to be the first one. And then just really quickly, the last one that I want to plug is that right after that self report, which is coming out in a few weeks. Elaine, our chief innovation officer is going to have this state of the industry report. This is going to be like a one stop shop for knowing what's going on in the next gen industry, I think it's going to be super powerful. So both of these reports are gonna be really, really exciting you they're gonna identify things like whitespace opportunities, you know, untapped areas of innovation, that could make a huge impact on the performance or sustainability of a next gen material. I'll give a really brief example. In next gen leathers right now there's a lot of use of polyurethane. This material is very versatile, creates flexible, water resistant, durable coatings. It can serve as a binding agent, but it's a petrochemical. It's not easily recycled. And, you know, we have seen some emerging innovation in biobased biodegradable resins that might replace this polyurethane, but we really see this as a white space where targeted continued research and investment would be huge because it would immediately transform a number of players in the next gen leather space, for example. So that just gives you an idea of the kind of insight we're trying to provide to these reports.

Speaker 1
Yeah, definitely. I mean, your colleague, Elaine sounds like she's got a hell of a lot on her plate if a one stop shop got. So I mean, as you said that you're hopefully going to provide other reports on other things other than self, what other things would you love to explore yourself? I mean, they might not be in the pipeline. But what other things? would you love to sort of, you know, get your teeth into? Yeah,

Speaker 2
I mean, so, you know, for example, that same kind of idea there. And we've got, you know, like wool is also another material that has very interesting properties that are surprisingly difficult to replicate, let's say. So going into, again, kind of like, what is it about? Well, that makes it so special? And what are people working on right now to try to replicate? Well. So really, we'll be highlighting a lot of those emerging technologies I've mentioned, you know, using basically what we bioengineering, right. So this is cellular processes, where you're using cells as factories, essentially, that can produce pretty much almost any material, it's starting to become the the new wave of this, this process, but particularly adept at at producing proteins, and silk and wool, infer are all protein based materials. So if you could produce the exact protein that they're made out of, you know, you could basically completely mimic that, that, you know, it could be to material, let's say, and so that's a really exciting, you know, technology that's out there. And other, it's particularly relevant for leather is also using cells. But this is really growing, like cell based constructs or tissues, that could actually basically grow a slab of leather in the laboratory. So this is, I think, a little farther down the road, I actually worked on some of this tissue tissue engineering technology during my grad school days. It's really like hot and emerging area, it's going to take a little bit of time to be commercially available, but you're literally growing leather without harming the animal. So as far as like the promise, it's, it's enormous.

Speaker 1
Wow, yeah, I wish I knew about some of these things when I was at school and wasn't sure what I was going to do when I grew up, because they just sound like such interesting areas that are going to be so important in years to come. I mean, it's fascinating. Really, yeah,

Speaker 2
I think it's a great opportunity. So I mean, I've always a proponent to go into STEM, you know, science, technology, math, etc. So it's a great place to be. 

Speaker 1
Now, I mean, one other thing I wanted to ask you about is I mean, we've mentioned this event, the next generation Firebase alternative materials innovation, digital Summit, which is quite a mouthful. A few times already. But I mean, how did that event go for you guys? I mean, have you heard of any connections that came out of it? I mean, will you be hosting more events like this in the future that people listening to potentially sign up for? Or? 

Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, it was, I think it was a really fantastic event, I will bet the event was put on before I even joined. And I so I just got to kind of reap the amazing benefits of it without putting in the hard work. But you know, it really well, it was a great way to bring together many of the players of this next gen ecosystem. And even though we NMI live and breathe this next gen space, it was so inspiring to get everyone in the same virtual room, and really appreciate all the innovation and opportunity that's taking place around the globe, in developing these new materials, so some of the things that we had came out of, of the conference, were a couple of like, I'd say, far reaching insights. So even before both threads announced their donation in partnership with us on the environmental impact assessments, we noticed this resounding trend by many of the participants, which was the need for more data, methods and transparency for sustainability for these materials. So we already discussed it at length, but it was frankly, just I felt like without even being, you know, asked the question, people were bringing this up as like the the thing that they really needed. And the second thing that I really noticed was honestly a bit of a plea. It was please be patient. So many of these next gen technologies are completely revolutionary. And the scientific principles behind them, you know, I just mentioned a few of them, this recombinant protein synthesis, tissue engineering, they're pretty new. And we need to recognise that time investment and effort is going to be necessary to refine and scale these materials to be ready for primetime. So we've, you know, I felt like there was a little bit of like, please just be patient, we'll get there. It was kind of the, you know, the voice of the conference. And what we see coming out of this is that we've been trying to assist is that brands that are planning to adopt a lot of these emerging materials need to have a very forward looking approach. So they need to be planted for fashion lines that are like years away, not seasons away. And we've seen that it's really going to transform the way that the industry approaches material selection. You know, usually it's maybe a season or two but For you just check the catalogue and pick it out. Right. But this is going to require more more cooperation, right with these brands and the emerging innovation in order to allow for these high performing sustainable materials to overtake the market. 

Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean that that message of patience, I think I noticed as well, actually. And it was, I think it was really, as you say, That event was just brilliant. And on the whole, and I think it was one particular presentation of gosh, I think it's the founder of a company called Lux DRO, which is actually based in London. And she gave a great present, because we've spoken today about, like startups in material and the material side, but she spoke from the brand side and what she looks for in these materials. And these conversations are really what you need, aren't they? Because for investment, and for brands to take notice, and for material to develop, you sort of have to, you need to know what each other is looking for, for it to work, otherwise, it's just going to be so mismatched, and it's going to take forever for these things to sort of accelerate, aren't they? 

Speaker 2
Exactly. And that's actually, you know, one of the things that I does if if brands are interested, they can reach out to us, we do have some partnerships, where we can kind of assist with this, let's say complex landscape that exists to kind of help make it a little bit easier. Particularly when if you know, a brand doesn't have the in house resources to to kind of follow and track all this innovation. 

Speaker 1
Well, Sydney, we're coming to the end, unfortunately. But I mean, I mentioned earlier that the industry suggesting that these next gen materials will be commonplace within the next five to 10 years. But I mean, what are your thoughts about this? Do you think this is possible? And what do you think else is needed? To for us to get there?

Speaker 2
Yeah, I definitely think I think we can get there. You know, the animal materials industry, I think is at least $120 billion market. And right now, next gen materials only occupy maybe 1% or less of that space. But I really think we're going to see some change soon. You know, we believe there's gonna be several waves of next gen materials entering the market. So we've already actually seen leather from Cactus or pineapple leaves integrated into products, these materials are ready now you know, you a consumer can buy a handbag or a wallet made from these innovative materials. And then there's a number of players that are kind of just about ready to come out. So they might have done some small collections, like what designers for example, bolt threads, mycelium derived Milo was recently debuted in this really beautiful leather busty a pants with Stella McCartney, you know, so that's, that's like a small collection of Sportline and sued, I think it's going to be consumer facing. And that we have, like I mentioned, some stuff is going to be further down the road that's in the Navy 10 years, right? This is the innovators that are using precision fermentation, the people using tissue engineering, all of these require the time and investment that I've described over and over. And really, that's why we call these materials next gen, because there isn't just one material or solution that we could expect to enter the market and then call this problem solved. There's going to be this gen, the next gen that even more next gen you know, et cetera, et cetera. So that's why, you know, it's really important to think about this as waves, materials that are appropriate for different applications from all the way from accessories, to apparel, to shoes, upholstery, automotive, it's going to require a lot of players and a lot of materials to really cover all of those bases. It's not like a one, one fits all kind of solution. So there's, there's a place for a lot of innovation and a lot of players. But in order to stay relevant, you know, these materials need to continually reduce their environmental footprint and increase their performance. That's, that's really the big the two big things there. So if you just make a product now and you stop innovating, you might get overtaken by some of these, you know, technologies that are 510 years in the making. But overall, you know, am I we're here to help make this path to commonplace, as we say, more efficient and more possible. That's really what we're here to do. We want to accelerate that. So we firmly believe that we're gonna see these materials really enter the marketplace soon. 

Speaker 1
Well, I mean, that's great, isn't it? And you made it such a good point there actually. It's just, I mean, you can't just create something and just stop your this is gonna be evolving for gosh, how many years to come. And, I mean, I mean, polyester when it was first developed. I mean, they never probably imagined these next gen materials ever potentially going to put them out of business one day, and yeah, so who knows what could happen? It sounds great. Anyway.

Speaker 1
Well, Sidney unfortunately, that's all we have time for today. But I mean, thank you so much for talking with me today. And good luck with all the great work that you're doing it and I really do think it's brilliant. So thank you.

Speaker 2
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to join the podcast today.