Canopy wants man-made cellulosic fibers to boldly go where none have gone before.
Hyperbole? Not necessarily. Speaking at Textile Exchange’s annual meeting in Vancouver on Thursday, Valerie Langer, senior director of transformation at the Canadian forestry nonprofit, unveiled the “sexier name” for the Pre-Competitive Alliance it had teased during New York Climate Week. The result is both a promise and a motivator: Next-Gen Warp Speed.
“I think we’ll need to get little Vulcan ears to wear at the table,” she joked.
The strategy works through two complementary pathways, either of which some brands may already be pursuing.
The first is making clothing that blends 20 to 50 percent “next-gen” fibers derived from waste streams with conventional “green shirt” MMCF with no known risk of ancient and endangered forests. While the price differential may be challenging for a lot of companies, Langer said, it also allows those that take this tack to make circular claims on their product labels that can also serve as a consumer marketing tool.
The second works by blending a more modest 5 percent of next-gen fiber across high-volume production, diluting the price premium and making the material more accessible for mid-size brands or companies. Doing so, she said, also guarantees a steady offtake for next-gen circular pulp producers, giving investors confidence to fund and build the next commercial-scale manufacturing mills.
“And when economies of scale start to kick in, the price of the fiber comes down,” Langer said. “That means you can move to 10 percent and 15 percent and more. So you start small in order to grow big.”
Langer said the approach, which will be announced more formally later this year, emerged from a study commissioned by Canopy that found that replacing just 5 percent of virgin wood pulp with next-generation, textile-to-textile recycled feedstock by 2028 could save a high-volume global apparel brand up to $40 million over a decade. The savings would come from reducing exposure to volatile and rising raw-material costs associated with virgin wood pulp and logging operations—risks that are intensifying as climate change makes forest fires more frequent and severe.
“You cannot lose millions of hectares of forest because of climate change, then expect that the supply is not going to be affected two, three, four, five years from now,” Langer said. “Basically you’re getting Thursday’s warehouse shelf on Monday because you need it for Monday, but then Thursday comes around. That’s a headwind. That causes prices to go up. That causes competition for short supply.”
Regulatory pressures, too, are only tightening, she noted. With the EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and extended producer responsibility schemes on the way, companies will need to shift to inherently compliant alternative feedstocks or risk paying a heavy toll.
“What we need is consistently available next-gen at a price point that is affordable and that is accessible to all brands, not just those who make special orders,” Langer said. Next-Gen Warp Speed, she added, boils down to three As: “accessibility, availability and affordability.”
“By having hundreds and thousands of brands able to access this consistently once producers start making lines that have 5 percent content, a brand can put in its preferred sourcing guide, ‘We nominate any of the green-shirt producers that have a line with 5 percent next-gen in it as part of our sourcing guide,’” Langer said. “And that means it becomes a regular part of procurement.”
Already, three major MMCF producers have expressed interest in creating a 5 percent line, she added. But they will only move forward if there’s enough demand from brands.
“We have five big ecosystems; all of them are in trouble and we have to do something today,” Langer said. “And you can do it today. You have an opportunity to be leaders. You have an opportunity to be regulation-ready. It’s a no-regret option with a high payback. And by 2031, we project that this will make next-gen MMCF cost parity. So there’s a good reason to start now.”
Canopy’s call to action comes as it announced new criteria for its Hot Button Report, an annual assessment that scores MMCF producers and assigns them colored “shirts” based on their transparency, risk levels and conservation efforts.
In 2026, 22 of 28 assessed producers achieved “green shirt” ratings, meaning low risk and strong policies, up 9 percent from the year before.
While the new framework, which was developed in consultation with all rated producers and select brand partners, cuts the number of criteria from seven to five and simplifies the shirt rating system from six to three colors, it also puts greater emphasis on traceability, forest conservation and scaling up next-generation fibers, including those derived from recycled textiles.
“The world is moving in 2030,” said Maryann Ramirez, senior lead at Canopy. “The UN World Development Goals are coming, new rules like the EUDR and extended producer responsibility are taking effect, and the climate crisis is getting worse. So we want to recognize that and want to update the Hot Button criteria to face those challenges.”
The five criteria are weighted differently. Leadership in low-risk sourcing makes up 31 percent of a company’s final score, followed by leadership in scaling next-gen fibers (27 percent), adoption of policy and completion of CanopyStyle audits (16 percent), traceability and transparency (13 percent) and contribution to conservation legacies (13 percent).
A green shirt will continue to indicate that a producer has no known risk of ancient and endangered forests or controversial fibers in its supply chain, while a producer with known high-risk sourcing will be issued a red shirt.
The changes aren’t stopping there, however. Ramirez expects to revisit the Hot Button Criteria in another five years.
“Canopy expects producers will transition to next-gen as the market matures, and brand demand accelerates,” she said. “So the next Hot Button update will reflect this expectation in the ratings.”