Harold Tillman's EFG partners with Hydrogen Utopia International to provide Fashion Pollution Solution

Ethical Fashion Group (EFG), co-founded by Harold Tillman CBE – fashion industry veteran and former chair of the British Fashion Council – has entered into a strategic partnership with a company that specialises in turning non-recyclable mixed waste plastic into hydrogen and other carbon-free fuels.

The partnership with Hydrogen Utopia International (HUI) allow clothing manufacturers, suppliers and retailers to address the environmental impact of products made partly or wholly from non-recyclable plastics including polyester and polyamides.

EFG and HUI, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, will provide a "ground-breaking Fashion Pollution Solution" to clothing manufacturers and suppliers.

EFG matches 60,000 fashion businesses in 140 countries with sustainable suppliers around the world. It joins Electron Thermal Processing and Linde, the leading global industrial gases and engineering company, as strategic partners of HUI, which is aiming to become one of the leading new European companies specialising in turning non-recyclable mixed waste plastic into carbon-free fuels, new materials or distributed renewable heat.

Tillman, who is one of fashion's best known names and a former owner of Jaeger and Aquascutumn, said: “The technology developed by Hydrogen Utopia means that, for the first time ever, the fashion industry can be part of the solution to the epidemic of plastic pollution facing the planet, rather than part of the problem.

“After a lifetime in the fashion industry, I am passionate about the urgent need for clothing manufacturers, suppliers and retailers to address the environmental damage they cause, and to embrace ethical and sustainable production.

“The Ethical Fashion Group helps them do this and this strategic partnership with HUI has the potential to transform the global clothing industry by tackling our addiction to plastic products,” Tillman said.

Aleksandra Binkowska, founder and chief executive of Hydrogen Utopia International, added: “It is a huge honour to win the support of Mr Harold Tilllman for the work being carried out by HUI.

"Consumers are dressing themselves in plastic, often without knowing it, by buying over one trillion items of clothing a year that are destined to end up in incinerators or landfill sites. Our Fashion Pollution Solution will give manufacturers access for the first time to technology that turns these items into road-fuel quality hydrogen fuel that will power the next generation of carbon-free vehicles."