Nike Strikes Deals with Cleantech Firms Syre and Loop for Recycled Inputs

Leading global sportswear brand Nike recently announced new multi-year agreements with two innovators in circular economy technology to source recycled polyester from textile waste. These partnerships highlight a growing shift within the apparel sector toward cleantech-enabled materials, as companies increasingly look to reduce their environmental impact while meeting performance expectations.

Circular Economy as a Growth Engine for Cleantech Startups

The apparel and footwear industry is undergoing a profound transformation as climate goals, regulatory pressure, and consumer expectations converge. Cleantech startups working in fibre-to-fibre recycling, chemical depolymerisation, and material recovery are emerging as essential players in this shift. With textiles among the world’s largest sources of waste and polyester accounting for a significant portion of fashion-related emissions, innovators capable of turning discarded material into high-quality feedstock are becoming central to corporate sustainability strategies.

The new agreements announced by the sportswear brand reflect this evolving landscape. For startups focused on circularity, large-scale procurement commitments from global brands offer not only commercial validation but also the scale required to finance new facilities, refine production processes, and bring breakthrough technologies to market.

Sustainability Targets Drive Demand for Circular Materials

The sportswear company has set ambitious goals: reducing operational emissions by more than half and cutting supply-chain emissions by nearly a third by 2030. Materials are a major lever in achieving these goals, accounting for more than a third of the brand’s total emissions footprint in 2024. With climate reporting becoming more rigorous and consumers increasingly attentive to sustainability claims, companies are under pressure to re-engineer products from the fibre level up.

One of the newly contracted recycling partners, founded in 2024 by sustainability-focused leaders in fashion and venture investment, is pioneering large-scale textile-to-textile polyester recycling. The startup aims to close the loop for the apparel industry by reusing the industry’s own waste streams. Such solutions directly address the sector’s reliance on virgin fossil-based polyester, which is linked to high emissions, microplastic pollution, and overconsumption of natural resources.

The partner has already secured agreements with several global retailers, underscoring the rapid momentum behind circular feedstock adoption.

Evolving from Pilot Projects to Scaled Commercial Solutions

A spokesperson from recycling startup, Syre,  emphasised that the new collaboration marks a turning point: circular materials are moving beyond small pilot collections and limited-edition capsules toward mainstream integration across major performance lines. The sportswear brand plans a step-by-step rollout of recycled fibre into its core products over the next several years, demonstrating that sustainability and athletic performance can be integrated at scale.

This trend mirrors a broader industry movement. As supply-chain transparency technologies advance and chemical-recycling processes become more efficient, major apparel brands are beginning to shift from marketing-driven “green drops” to systemic material transformation.

Advanced Cleantech Enables High-Quality Circular Polyester

The second newly contracted partner, Loop Industries, a cleantech company specialising in depolymerisation, has developed a process capable of breaking down PET plastics and polyester fibres from diverse waste streams into their molecular building blocks. This yields virgin-quality materials suitable for both packaging and textiles, addressing one of the largest barriers in textile recycling: maintaining quality without relying on fossil feedstocks.

Their agreement includes supplying the sportswear brand with circular polyester resin, while also establishing the brand as the anchor customer for a new large-scale manufacturing facility in India. This model, pairing long-term purchasing commitments with the construction of new infrastructure, is increasingly common in cleantech sectors and is considered essential for accelerating the circular economy.

The facility is projected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 80% compared with traditional polyester production, potentially eliminating hundreds of thousands of tonnes of CO₂ annually.

The Rising Influence of Cleantech in Fashion

Across the industry, cleantech startups are rapidly expanding their influence. Solutions such as enzymatic recycling, bio-based materials, AI-enabled waste sorting, and digital product passports are entering the mainstream as brands seek credible, scalable pathways to circularity. Investors are taking more notice, with circular fashion technologies becoming a fast-growing segment of climate-tech investment.

For global brands, collaborating with startups offers access to cutting-edge technologies and a pathway to reach sustainability commitments. For startups, these partnerships provide volume, financing pathways, and marketplace visibility, the essential ingredients to move from niche innovation to industrial-scale transformation.

A Blueprint for the Future of Circular Fashion

The sportswear brand’s new agreements represent more than supplier changes. They demonstrate how the apparel industry is beginning to rethink value chains, design strategies, and material flows. By partnering with next-generation recycling companies, the brand intends to build a future in which waste becomes feedstock, performance is compatible with sustainability, and circularity is embedded into the mainstream product ecosystem.

As cleantech innovations continue to mature, such collaborations may become the norm rather than the exception, shaping a more regenerative, lower-carbon, and resource-efficient future for the global fashion industry.