H&M rewards Finnish cotton recycling innovation
An innovation for the conversion of waste-cotton into new textile received the Global Change Award by H&M Conscious Foundation. The innovation has been jointly developed by Aalto University, the University of Helsinki and VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland.
A total of 2700 proposals from 112 countries were submitted to the competition, of which the jury nominated five winners. Most public votes and a grant of 300000 euros were awarded to the Finnish team. The total grant of one million euros was distributed among the five finalists.
The Ioncell-F process, developed by Aalto University, is a green, non-toxic and environmentally friendly technology for dissolving waste-cotton utilising an ionic liquid developed at the University of Helsinki. VTT has developed an appropriate pre-treatment process for the use of post-consumer cotton. To further develop their ideas, the five finalists get also access to a one-year innovation accelerator provided by the H&M Conscious Foundation, Accenture and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.