Ratti: Case Study
Ratti has been the leading producer of Made in Italy fabrics for luxury and prêt-à-porter brands since 1945. Sustainability is our primary value, combining cultural heritage with technological innovation, oriented towards a circular, socially responsible economy, in a constant quest for what is beautiful, well made and sustainable.
Website: https://www.ratti.it/en/
Ratti consciously endeavours to address waste at every point of the value chain. Ratti is a catalyst for change through the supply chain as their initiatives involve various partners and brands, and upstream companies to address waste and impact from textiles and fashion. The following interview looks to explore this inspiring Italian fabric manufacturer’s textile value chain strategies.
First, let's talk about DESIGN - how does Ratti contribute to reducing waste at the first design phase of the textile value chain?
It is without doubt that ‘fashion’ needs to completely rethink the design phase to embed sustainability at its core. Ratti - according to its creative DNA - aims to inspire, mainly in the development of fabrics and prints. The traditional business model creates huge numbers of samples and designs, but only very few of them are actually selected. To avoid waste creation both in designs and fabrics, at Ratti we introduced the option of virtual sampling to our design stage and every day we are on the path to providing more realistic virtual tools: exploiting the power of digital transformation through a fully virtual archive, AR, VR, and video game technologies.
At the second stage of fashion production, RAW MATERIALS, how does Ratti help reduce waste and its impact on the environment, and address the issues of social justice in the supply chain?
Ratti focuses on sustainable and ethical manufacturing of raw materials - for textiles, threads, colours, and more. For us it is critical that we select suppliers with high quality and transparency. This also helps with minimising the overproduction due to quality issues. Moving forward we are also prioritising the use of recycled fabrics. The investment in digital has also allowed us to address many factors including overproduction, traceability and transparency. For example, we are focused on collaborative forecasting with our customers to prevent overproduction related to forecasting errors.
Ratti is developing a purposely made AI solution (in partnership with a team of data scientists) aimed to reliably predict raw materials demand based on stochastic analysis of past demand and additional data through neural algorithms. This tool - associated to a collaborative approach with both customers and suppliers - could become key for optimising raw materials procurement by increased forecasting reliability, hence addressing waste minimisation in this phase of the value chain. Similarly we use other digital technologies like RFId in order to monitor all the production phases so as to minimise overproduction due to defects or any other industrial issues.
In terms of social justice, as an entire industry, fashion needs to reverse its course immediately. We must invest in reshoring and demand respect of better than at least the minimum acceptable working conditions. At Ratti we take a responsible approach. In all its locations, Ratti focuses on enhancing the individual and safeguarding equal opportunities, which begins with the recruitment process, and then continues during the journey of personal growth that each person undertakes, thanks to continuous investment in training. Welfare and benefit policies contribute to creating a working environment in which every employee can find an effective answer to their specific needs, whether in terms of family management or mental and physical health.
FABRIC PRODUCTION has been your area of expertise since 1945; how does Ratti help reduce waste at this critical stage and also assist other players to do so through your initiatives?
Transparency, sustainability, and respect are values to apply since the beginning of the story. Fabric production is probably one of the most impacting phase of the entire value chain (high consumption of natural resources, use of chemicals). Our core values drive us to find the best responsibly-sourced materials and ensure appropriate work conditions. Ratti represents a best practice not only in terms of minimising textile waste, but also in terms of minimising our overall environmental impact related to water usage, CO2 emissions, and use of energy from renewable sources.
Our effort to minimise waste within the production of printed fabrics includes:
Make to order approach, producing exactly the required quantities
Pervasive use of digital technologies such as RFId in the overall production process, with continuous improvement
Reuse of discarded fabrics e.g. transformed into insulation padding for outerwear. See our Second life fiber project.
Circular economy projects: donation of surplus fabrics to NGO to be used for hand-crafted artefacts.
Learn more on Ratti’s website.
Producing your incredible fabrics are critical to the next stage in the textile value chain of GARMENT PRODUCTION. How does Ratti help reduce waste at this stage?
From our experience, the garment production stage is responsible for textile waste mainly due to excess purchasing of raw materials, quality issues and sub-optimisation of the cutting process, plus finished garments waste due to quality problems and overproduction.
Ratti fosters waste reduction at this stage through optimising the materials purchasing, thanks to collaboration with suppliers and collaborative forecasting approaches with customers. Secondly we are introducing more make-to-order approaches, so investing in a just-in-time approach, to assist brands to produce garments that the market really requires. Finally we always focus on quality, both in our materials and processes, to prevent the production of defective garments.
DISTRIBUTION and logistics plays an important role in the textile industry as it is truly global. What strategies has Ratti put in place to help reduce waste in the transportation of fashion across the globe?
In general, the distribution of fashion has an impact mostly in terms of location misalignments between demand and offer (late deliveries, overstock in the wrong place, wrong mix etc). The key solutions to these problems are for brands to offer a ‘Make to Order’ approach (which requires a cultural change, also at the consumer level). We also need the introduction of AI driven forecasting & replenishment systems, so as to minimise the trade off between stockout and overstock at point of sale level.
From Ratti’s point of view, ‘distribution’ refers to delivering samples and fabrics to B2B customers. Our commitment to reducing impacts is in the virtualisation of the product and in allowing virtual visits to our creative archives, so as to minimise the environmental impact of shipping and travelling.
You offer some incredible solutions to the RETAIL phase for brands who partner with Ratti. How do you help retailers reduce their waste at this stage in the process?
The way we have always conceived and consumed clothing is no longer sustainable. We need to restore value to what we wear, turning the old into a new resource. Technical know-how, focus on circular economy projects, plus the expertise of a sports partner, allowed Ratti to develop 2nd LIFE HYDRO, an industrial process that restores a garment’s water-repellent performance and functionality. 2nd LIFE HYDRO prolongs the lifecycle of the garment, minimising its environmental impact.
Ratti also addresses the issue of unsold garments, through the 2nd LIFE PRINT upcycling project, where we add value to existing garments through applying printed creativity within a sustainable process.
The upcycling of unsold garments not only reduces emissions when compared with manufacturing new garments, but also avoids a financial loss by recovering capital depreciation. This is an opportunity that provides an immediate response to a market that is becoming increasingly sensitive to issues of sustainability, while at the same time offering better brand positioning by enhancing its reputation. 2nd LIFE PRINT opens the door to a service that is unique and personalised.
Your second life projects help extend the USE of products for both brands and consumers. Can you explain further how you help reduce the waste at the USE stage?
Extending the duration of clothes and giving them a ‘second life’ is probably the major way for approaching the waste deriving from the use phase.
Durability is a crucial issue to be addressed by brands, clothes manufacturers, and fabric producers. Improving the physical, chemical, and mechanical performances of materials and garments are all necessary conditions for allowing a longer lifecycle. At Ratti, in addition to our careful consideration of material performance which is in the DNA of the company, we have launched the Second Life projects.
For the Use phase (post-consumer), we also consider the 2nd LIFE PRINT project as an exciting means to adding new value to already existing clothes.
As the Generation of Waste exhibit shows, the END OF LIFE stage has the most waste generated from the consumer perspective. However, I assume END OF LIFE from Ratti’s perspective is more concerned with fabrics unsold, damaged etc. How do you help reduce the impact from both your own waste at this stage and from a consumer perspective?
Ratti addresses End of Life on an industrial level in two main ways. Firstly, our 2nd LIFE FIBRE transforms waste (pre-consumer unusable fabric) into a new raw material for garment production. So basically we take waste from our processes here at Ratti and through a circular approach make a new raw material.
In addition to this we also offer second life at the consumer stage. Our 2nd LIFE HYDRO gives literally a new life to garments that consumers potentially would dispose. Ultimately extending a garment’s lifecycle and helping address overconsumption of clothing.
Ratti supports the creation of an EPR (Extended Producer Responsibility) for fashion, in association with other relevant players. This system is already well-developed for other consumer sectors (e.g. electronic appliances) but sadly is underdeveloped in the fashion system.
Clearly, Ratti is investing in some brilliant initiatives to address the issues created by the fashion industry. Considering the bigger picture, how are you reducing your impact on the environment, advancing social justice, and helping promote economic prosperity?
In terms of environment, Ratti currently recycles 68% of its non-hazardous waste and 70% of its hazardous waste. Ratti presents a sustainable offering plus the Second Life projects family, focused on reducing, reusing, and upcycling textile waste.
From a social perspective, Ratti promotes social inclusion and female employment, giving attention to poorer countries through UN partnered initiatives. Ratti provides full-time employment to over 95% of its staff, of which 66% are women. In Creomoda company, a subsidiary of Ratti in Sousse Tunisia, workers benefit from the same excellent working conditions as in an Italian factory.
Economic (prosperity) for Ratti, involves innovative circular practices from the Second Life project that demonstrate positive economic impact, enabled by research, investment, and capacity to experiment.
To learn more, you can read our annual sustainability report that describes the activities carried out and the results achieved in relation to the financial, social and environmental sustainability of the organisation or company.
- Ratti, www.ratti.it
