106 5 Result of Analysis and Interpretations
Table 18 Interview comments on high R&D expenses
Case Alpha
“The recycled polyester costs more than virgin fiber polyester. To make the technology
that would be enormous, you know, I have to talk to them [Supplier] to get to know what
figure it was but it was tens and tens of Millions of Dollars. So they had to advertise that
over time and that price sets the cost of recycled polyester.”
Case Beta
“We needed two years until we had suppliers and then we had to conduct many tests to
check the material. The tests have been conducted to check if e.g. coloring with special
color is working properly etc.” (see Appendix: German Quote 56).
Case Gamma
“The resources are getting more expensive because they are new developments most of
the time” (see Appendix: German Quote 57).
Case Eta
“We had almost started the product development of Cradle-to-Cradle certified products
but stopped it because we realized that the effort is too high for the few products resulting
from it” (see Appendix: German Quote 58).
Case Iota
“In terms of what we anticipate for future challenges...I think there are a lot of materials
used in the chemicals industry more broadly but even within apparel that have a very
vague understanding of their material’s toxicity, so with water repellants and anti-odor
chemicals I think there will be an ongoing challenge to understand which materials are
good are generally benign and which ones are potential threats.”One major challenge identified is finding circulatable substitutes with the same
quality and product features as conventional material. Currently only a narrow
range of material can be substituted due to the limited availability of adequate
material. This leads to major restrictions in the product portfolio for organizations.
For example Case Delta mentioned that products couldn’t be dyed to allow endless
circularity of the products: “Of course there is the idea to have products being in
material circles endlessly but this is only possible if we leave them ‘untouched’ e.g.
without any color. This would be a major limitation for us and that is the reason why I
think that the technical cycle might be difficult to implement” (see Appendix: German
Quote 24). Case Eta describes a similar situation when indicating that the material
currently available to manufacture circular products can only be used for a very
limited product range: “The type of materials which are available, Cradle-to-Cradle
certified, e.g. yarns and products made out of it, can only be used for a very limited
product range. And this range, which is mainly underwear and sportswear, lies not
within our core competencies” (see Appendix: German Quote 59).