The 'Deep Fashion' era: when CO2 becomes a key asset for luxury and retail

In 2017, the Kering group announced its intention to reduce its emissions by 50 percent by 2025 through optimisation and offsetting. Nine years later, in 2026, the industry no longer aims to reduce its footprint; it is transforming carbon into a resource. This marks a paradigm shift, with fashion moving from the realm of textiles to that of Climate-Tech.

Historically, fashion has always been an extractive industry. Fibre is created by cultivating crops, felling trees, or pumping oil. The model emerging in the first half of 2026, as reported by Science et Vie, is driven by players like the Californian startup Rubi Laboratories. It proposes a more radical departure: industrial photosynthesis.

End of extraction: industrial-scale biomimicry

Where the Kering group was exploring alternatives like mushroom leather as early as 2017, Rubi Laboratories is now industrialising an enzymatic process capable of converting captured CO2 into high-purity cellulose.

Mechanism

By replicating the life cycle of a tree in modular bioreactors, the technology creates a lyocell (cellulosic fibre) without felling any forests.

Competitive advantage

Unlike previous innovations that required a complete overhaul of factories, this "air-made" fibre is compatible with existing spinning infrastructure. This interoperability is the key factor that has convinced 15 global giants, from fast fashion (H&M) and accessible luxury (Ganni) to outdoor wear (Patagonia).

Venture capital redefines value: from brand to infrastructure

The analysis of financial flows in the first quarter of 2026, marked by a total volume of 620 million dollars raised, confirms a paradigm shift. Fashion is no longer valued by the markets as a simple retail business, but as a genuine technology sector.

Venture capital funds are now shifting their focus from brand image and wholesale margins to artificial intelligence, supply chain optimisation, and unit economics. This transformation shifts asset value from design and physical store networks to intellectual property and software infrastructure. Consequently, the most innovative fashion companies now benefit from high valuation multipliers comparable to those in the SaaS or DeepTech sectors. This contrasts with the historically low multiples of this cyclical industry.

The investment of prestigious funds like Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) and Khosla Ventures, historical Silicon Valley "heavyweights", in promising startups such as Phia (AI) and Rubi (Climate-Tech) proves that profitability is no longer found in creating fleeting trends. It now lies in technologically solving the sector's structural inefficiencies, whether overproduction, traceability, or pollution.

Table: Evolution of valuation criteria in the fashion industry (2024-2026) Credits: FashionUnited

Renewcell's crash: a lesson from the industrial "Valley of Death"

While the enthusiasm is real, the spectre of the Swedish company Renewcell (which went bankrupt in 2024 despite H&M's support) looms over the sector. The challenge for Rubi and its peers is not scientific; it is primarily logistical.

Price parity

To move beyond the "sustainable capsule" niche, CO2-textile must achieve price parity with conventional viscose.

Modularity

Rubi's approach of using deployable units where CO2 is emitted seems more resilient than the centralised giant factory model that led to Renewcell's downfall.

Prospective analysis: towards a "decentralised fashion"?

The evolution from Kering's 2017 plan to the 2026 funding rounds shows a shift from responsibility to resilience.

2017 was about measurement. With its EP&L tool, Kering measured the damage to better limit it. At that time, sustainability was seen as a necessary cost centre and a major reputational issue. The primary goal was to offset existing impacts.

2026 is about change. Sustainability is now becoming a profit centre. Companies like Quince (valued at 10.1 billion dollars) and Rubi are using AI and biotech to physically eliminate waste and virgin raw materials. It is no longer a constraint but the very engine of profitability.

Will tomorrow's "Fashion Score" be technical?

For executives, the implication is significant. The value of a fashion company in 2026 is no longer measured solely by the desirability of its logo, but by the intellectual property within its value chain.

The transition of CO2 from a "greenhouse gas" to a "raw material" could well mark fashion's entry into the era of bio-manufacturing. Brands that do not own or have privileged partnerships with these disruptive technologies risk being marginalised in a sector where regulation and the cost of virgin raw materials will become prohibitive.

This article was translated to English using an AI tool.

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