DesignInnovation

Sustainable Sound Insulation – Acoustic Felt Made From Textile Waste

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Future proof design that embraces circularity, without compromising on safety and environmental standards is a non-negotiable for award-winning industrial design studio Form Us With Love and their venture BAUX. The Stockholm-based pioneer is reinventing what is to be expected by architects, engineers and builders when it comes to retrofitting buildings with materials and sustainable sound insulation. Their latest launch – the Acoustic Felt has cemented the studio’s status as a leader in acoustic sound absorbers. Made from 100% traceable textile offcuts, the product upcycles surplus polyester materials in the pursuit of functional, stylish and environmentally considered sound solutions.

Transforming textiles into sound insultation

The Acoustic Felt is a distinguished, industry first for transforming textile waste into sound insulation products. Given the estimates that a mere 12% of materials used for clothing end up being recycled and that 92 million tonnes of textile waste is produced globally, the introduction of the Acoustic Felt onto the market is a pragmatic example of how innovation can mitigate both the fashion and construction industry’s seismic carbon and water footprint.

BAUX’s desire to innovate and build long lasting functional solutions, integrated with the principles of circularity and designing out waste, coincide with the shifting zeitgeist of the time that has a heavy focus on recycling and repurposing textile waste.

Since its inception in 2014, BAUX has grown to become a leader for creating imaginative and contemporary material solutions. If you’re unfamiliar with their name directly, you won’t be unfamiliar with their work which is favoured by the likes of Amazon, Google, Spotify and Stella McCartney. The surge in demand for their products is correlated to the shift in paradigm that sees sustainability as a prerequisite for building materials. “Sustainability is not only highly valued but considered a requirement to qualify for a project” notes Fredrik Franzon, Head of Product and Founding Partner at BAUX. 

The studio has recorded positive growth for 2019-2020, despite the commercial challenges provoked by the global pandemic and now ships to 64 countries. All the while still manufacturing and assembling their acoustic designs in their home country, Sweden.  

The compact, functional and versatile application of the Acoustic Felt, means that the product can be set in social areas or around noise sources that need to be walled off. Think desk dividers, free standing partitions or linings to walls. It’s insulation properties trap the energy of sound as it hits the surface and therefore reduces the volume of sound that can continue travelling on.

To create the panels, BAUX sources fabric off cuts made from 100% polyester-based threads from Swedish textile manufacturer Ludvig Svensson.

Reducing the industry’s reliance on petroleum derived fibres like polyester, is an important drive to minimise heavy use of virgin synthetic fibres which now account for 1.35% of global oil consumption, according to a landmark report published by the Changing Markets Foundation.

At the next stage of the felt’s supply chain, recycled threads are combined with energy efficient polyester fibres at The Loop Factory . The process has been specifically designed to accept material offcuts of varying fibre qualities to eliminate the potential for any further residual waste. For BAUX, The Loop Factory was an obvious partner to co-create the Acoustic Felt panels. “We have a joint mission to scale sustainable innovations to a new level and to make them broadly available through smart product development.” says Franzon from BAUX.  

“We set out to reinvent and develop felt. Our goal was to offer something new, that pushes boundaries both in terms of greater levels of sustainability and provide features the market hasn’t seen before.” he adds.

By working solely with Swedish supply chain partners, their small manufacturing network is traceable and nullifies any need for large manufacturing plants or special processing facilities that make a truly circular supply chain hard to come by.

Looking beyond the primary materials, treatments and trimmings of the felt have been considered – this includes REACH approved chemicals, colourings and dyes. The panels use naturally variegated colour, scaling from white, grey and black and are dyed locally in compliance with Swedish environmental legislation. No glue or hardware is used either – highlighting that each tile has been designed with the intention to be repurposed and reused, with the guarantee that no panel requires treatment before recycling.

In a similar vein to fashion brands take back schemes, any design studios with ambitions to integrate ‘circularity’ into their operations would not be complete without the infrastructure to return their products for their next reincarnation. Franzon says that “Customers purchasing BAUX Acoustic Felt will be offered a take-back opportunity. We will take care of the used panels, grind them down, before moulding new products and panels again.” The full environmental footprint and Life Cycle Assessment of the panels is currently being calculated and will be published by BAUX in the upcoming months.  

WRAP 2030’s Circularity Pathway notes that “Innovation, in the way the industry works, will be core to delivering a circular system” and the BAUX team are leading the charge.  Franzon underlines that “Designing the sustainable acoustic building materials for tomorrow means producing environmentally friendly materials today”. 

The Acoustic Felt is only one product in BAUX’s repertoire, having launched the Acoustic Pulp panel in 2019 which combines 100% biodegradable and 100% organic content for high sound absorption. Franzon’s ambition is that the felt will earn a overwhelmingly positive reception post-launch too.  

Elsewhere, BAUX has amassed a following amongst the fashion crowd through its global partnership with luxury fashion house Stella McCartney. Since the first showcase of the BAUX Wood Wool Tiles in McCartney’s flagship store in Milan in 2013, the companies have collaborated in other retail spaces throughout Europe, the U.S. and Asia. This symbiotic relationship comes naturally given both organisations’ respect for biodiversity and passion for sustainably sourced materials.

Stella McCartney’s Houston flagship which features BAUX acoustic panels

The company’s wider climate commitments include membership of the UN Climate Neutral Now initiative with the intention to become fully climate-neutral by the end of 2021. Any emissions that cannot be eliminated across the value chain are compensated through UN-certified emissions reduction programmes. Franzon states “This is an important step in the right direction and we hope to encourage our friends in the industry to follow the same path.”

Furnishing with textile waste

The release of the Acoustic Felt is timely to say the least, given the urgency of addressing fashion’s aforementioned waste challenges. Other players in the design and interior space are also experimenting with the use of recycled textiles. For instance, Swedish homeware giant IKEA revealed that it has increased its use of recycled polyester from 59% to 83% across all textile products in its 2020 sustainability report.

Long standing collaborations between global commercial flooring company Interface and ECONYL® have used regenerative nylon waste to create the ‘Net Effect Collection’ for office spaces as well as the ‘Human Nature Collection’ which consists of 81% total recycled content.

The desire to keep materials in a closed loop has also given rise to the popularity of companies like Rype Office who remanufacture existing furniture for office spaces but also create new pieces from plastic waste.

For the retail industry specifically, the WRAP 2030 initiative continues to galvanise the sector’s commitments to collaborate on carbon and circular textile targets with a clear roadmap on supply use and the disposal of textiles.   To optimise the long-term potential of partnerships which reuse fibres and waste textile products, both the interior design and fashion markets should collaborate for a system-led approach that minimises waste and transitions away from working in silos.

Environmental challenges of virgin and recycled synthetics

Recycling and repurposing synthetics is beneficial for keeping these materials out of landfill for a prolonged period of time. However, the exponential rise in popularity of recycled polyester still skirts around the issues of the prolific plastic pollution that occurs through microfibre shedding.  As it stands, polyester maintains its position as the most widely used fibre in the apparel sector, standing at 52% of all the fibres produced globally. This is immeasurably problematic given that scientists have now discovered plastic clothing particles in rain and in the Arctic sea. Efforts to significantly minimise the overall level of output for synthetic fibres is critical, and that includes reducing reliance on recycled types of these textiles too.  

Hope still exists. Concerted efforts to remedy the reliance on plastic fibres has already begun, with the most recent launch of innovation consortiums like The Renewable Carbon Textiles Project in June, funded by the Laudes Foundation. In collaboration with global players including PVH Corp, the group are committed to developing replacements for fossil fuel-based fibres. By experimenting with PHA polymers, which provide a bio-based, marine and soil compostable alternative to materials like polyester, the project is pioneering viable alternatives.

Progress like this could be a critical piece to the puzzle in decarbonising the fashion industry and creating textiles that can be responsibly deconstructed at their end-of-life phase or repurposed by the imaginative minds at studios like Form Us With Love and BAUX.


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