They say, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. That’s exactly what Adriana Santanocito and Enrica Arena did. Demonstrating innovation at its finest, the two women found a way to transform citrus juice by-products into a new concept of luxury.
Over the last 50 years as the population has grown, so has the demand for food processing, leaving an enormous amount of inedible byproducts that has a cost to the processing industry and the environment. Knowing the amount of waste discarded in Italy alone, Adriana Santanocito and Enrica Arena began to explore ways to turn waste into a resource, rather than discarding it. While working on her dissertation, Adriana paired up with Enrica who was a Communication and Cooperation student at the time, to develop ways to reuse discarded citrus juice waste and turn it into a high quality, luxury fabric.
Funded by private investors, the pair managed to create prototypes before setting up the first pilot factory in 2015, and potentially saving 700,000 tonnes of citrus juice by-products in Italy per year. Following the successful execution of their idea, Orange Fiber caught the attention of renowned brand Salvatore Ferragamo, who created the first fashion collection made exclusively with the fiber, launching on Earth Day in 2017. This year, the fiber has even made its way into fast fashion brand H&M’s collection, made entirely from sustainable materials.
After a successful equity crowdfunding campaign, the company now has the resources to carry out their first industrial scale up, elevating their production capacity to meet demand and make an even greater impact on the fashion industry. As more businesses are seeking ways to create a circular model supply chain, companies like Orange Fibre and ECONYL (who develop fabrics from ocean plastics), are important pieces of the puzzle to help reduce the world’s carbon emissions and the things that cause it; from food waste, fast fashion and linear supply chains.
With Sicilian roots, international ambition and female leadership at the soul of this company, Enrica and Adriana have unsurprisingly been awarded a number of prizes, recognising the positive impact they’ve made towards a more sustainable future in the fashion industry. Among these accolades were the Global Change Award in 2015 by the H&M Foundation, along with the National Prize for Innovation “Premio dei Premi” for Italian design, presented by the President of the Italian Republic Sergio Mattarella.
With their sights set on spreading real change, Orange Fiber state that they’re “committed to bringing sustainable practices to the fashion industry, shaping a new concept of luxury. The contemporary way to construct an ethical and sustainable lifestyle, that looks further than status and consider the future – most importantly, the future of our world.
It’s clear that female leadership is an important factor towards a more sustainable future and it’s incredible what empowered women can achieve. Unfortunately in some industries however, women aren’t as readily encouraged to be confident and empowered in their careers. We’ve observed, that despite the fact it’s slowly improving, the realm of agriculture is less progressive than other industries in this area. That’s why need your help to help more women create a more equal and inclusive agriculture industry, where female leadership is encouraged.
Lead by women, for women, the team at GWF are on a mission to change all that — but we need your help. Currently, little data exists on the experiences women have as they pursue careers in the global fresh industry — and this information is crucial to how we move forward with making change. Please take part in this short survey and help us empower more women to create positive change in the world.
