Reliance to make ‘sustainable clothing’ affordable

Reliance Industries (RIL), the world’s largest integrated polyester yarn and fibre producer, has taken a big stride to make ‘sustainable clothing’ affordable, taking a leaf from the success story of the group’s telecom venture Jio in getting volumes with competitive pricing.

“For us, sustainability is not a fashionable word, we are making fashion out of it and it is a sustainable business,” said Vipul Shah, Chief Operating Officer of petrochemicals division at RIL. “It is time we look at sustainability beyond CSR.”

RIL, pioneer of recycling of PET bottles in India, is processing over two billion post-consumer (used) PET bottles every year and plans to scale it up to six billion in two years.

RIL’s initiative for recycling of used waste PET bottle is a classic example of sustainability and circularity as it is the only company in the world that has created a complete circle from creation of PET Resin for making bottles, collection of discarded PET bottles, converting them to Recron Green Gold, eco-friendly polyester fibres for use by downstream textile value chain that converts the fibres in to high-value sleep products and R|Elan™-based fashion apparel.