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Billionaire philanthropist Lauren S\u00e1nchez Bezos wants to change what your clothes are made of, and help offset fashion\u2019s materials problem.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In late April, the Bezos Earth Fund, where S\u00e1nchez Bezos serves as vice chair, announced $34 million in grants to advance breakthrough materials for the fashion and textile industry. The money is split across four research tracks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Columbia University and the Fashion Institute of Technology will share $11.5 million to grow a textile fiber from bacteria fed on agricultural waste. UC Berkeley gets $10 million for a biodegradable fiber inspired by spider silk\u2014no silkworms, spiders, or plastic. Clemson University receives $11 million to gene-edit cotton with built-in color and performance. And the Cotton Foundation gets $1.5 million to restore a non-GMO cotton seedbank. S\u00e1nchez Bezos has become the more visible figure in the couple\u2019s philanthropy, setting the pace at a fund racing to disburse the remaining roughly $7 billion of Bezos\u2019s $10 billion climate pledge before 2030.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese teams are growing fiber from bacteria, engineering cotton that comes out of the ground in color and creating silk-like fibers from compost,\u201d S\u00e1nchez Bezos said in a statement. \u201cThat\u2019s not just good for the planet. That\u2019s the future of fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fund says materials and manufacturing account for roughly 80% of fashion\u2019s environmental footprint, including emissions, water use, pollution, and landfill waste. So the Bezos Earth Fund\u2019s logic is that if the fiber gets fixed, then one of the major problems with fashion waste would be cut before a garment is ever made.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Reaction and debate<\/p>\n
While it\u2019s a decent investment in the sustainability of fashion, not everyone is buying the sincerity of S\u00e1nchez Bezos\u2019 move. The announcement landed just days ahead of the 2026 Met Gala, where Bezos and S\u00e1nchez Bezos served as lead sponsors and honorary co-chairs. Their role at the gala\u2014revered as one of the most significant events in fashion each year\u2014sparked significant backlash, with activists protesting over allegations of worker exploitation at Amazon.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Met Gala is more than a party: It\u2019s fashion\u2019s yearly marquee fundraiser that bankrolls the Metropolitan Museum of Art\u2019s Costume Institute and is a major cultural event. The criticism came because the grant that was meant to remake fashion\u2019s supply chain was announced the same week the couple headlined fashion\u2019s biggest night. So to some, it looked like image management.<\/p>\n
The activist group Everyone Hates Elon plastered anti-Bezos posters around New York, and critics argued Bezos was using the event to \u201claunder his image,\u201d one protester told the Daily Mail. Fashion trade publication Sourcing Journal also reported the criticism spurred a worker-led counter-event, and that posters cast it as the \u201cBezos Met Gala\u201d \u201cbrought to you by worker exploitation.\u201d One organizer\u2019s line summed up the mood: billionaires must remember there would be no billionaires without essential workers.<\/p>\n
The debate was sparked again just a few days ago when S\u00e1nchez Bezos posted a video on Instagram about what sustainable materials clothes can be made out of. She named mushrooms, pineapple leaves, cactus, bacteria, and fishing nets as viable clothing materials, adding she is \u201cso excited to be working with the Bezos Earth Fund and the scientists reinventing the next generation of planet-friendly fabrics.\u201d<\/p>\n
While many comments on the video were supportive and fascinated, others were skeptical.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCan offset carbon emissions of private jet travel,\u201d one Instagram user said. \u201cHighly doubt your Dolce wedding dress and 80 corsets are made from cactus or bacteria,\u201d said another.<\/p>\n
Critics are also unsure of the Bezos\u2019 investment in sustainable fashion because Amazon is the world\u2019s largest clothing retailer and has long been criticized for pollution tied to manufacturing, packaging, and rapid delivery. To be sure, Amazon says it is working toward net-zero carbon emissions by 2040, but its 2024 sustainability report showed absolute carbon emissions rose 6% that year, even as emissions per shipped unit fell about a third since 2019.<\/p>\n
The other issue is many of these next-generation materials are expensive to manufacture, and sustainable-textile startups have long struggled to compete with polyester on price and scale. But the Bezos Earth Fund appears to understand that. The fund says its aim is to \u201cdrive performance up and premiums down.\u201d So while these developments are possible, they are costly.<\/p>\n
The Bezos Earth Fund didn\u2019t immediately respond to Fortune\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n
#Lauren #S\u00e1nchez #Bezos #put #34M #change #clothes #ofand #ignited #Amazon #debate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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