Jacob Holm’s Sontara® facility in Old Hickory, Tennessee, sits on the shores of Old Hickory Lake. In honor of Earth Day 2020, we planted trees throughout our property, including magnolias, green giants, cherry trees and oaks. It’s one way to honor not just the Earth, but the history of our company and the Mikkelsen family’s profound connection to forestry. We hope our new trees serve as symbols to our commitment to the sustainable growth of middle Tennessee.

Without water, Jacob Holm wouldn’t be in business. In fact, it’s the main ingredient in our products. That’s why we make water quality central to our sustainability goals, working intimately with the local municipalities where our plants are based to ensure rigorous standards are maintained. As part of those standards, we closely monitor every single production run for chemical, biological and physical contamination in our in-house laboratories.

Looking toward the future, we know our standards will be impossible to achieve without pure and abundant water, so we’re acting now to ensure it will be available. In addition to recycling up to 90% of our water at some plants, we’ve committed to reducing our global water consumption by five percent by 2025. That’s a goal we can meet through our innovative technology and continuously improving production efficiency, driven by our conscious dependence on our most precious resource.

Sustainability begins with your ingredients, and it’s even more crucial when your main ingredient is pure water. Our proprietary process for creating our nonwoven fabrics, called hydro-entanglement, uses only water and fiber and is free from all other binders and chemical additives.

Of the Jacob Holm manufacturing plants, the Soultz facility boasts the lowest environmental impact, leading the way within our corporate family and across our industry. From sustainably sourcing our water to re-using almost all of it, we’re pushing continuously toward both environment and business sustainability at all of our manufacturing facilities.

Even on a global scale, small changes matter. As part of our commitment to reducing the environmental impact of manufacturing, Jacob Holm has begun a process of replacing the high-pressure sodium bulbs in our facilities with LED bulbs. While it may not sound as bold as our other sustainability initiatives, we’ve seen a substantial benefit. For example, our warehouse and converting facility in Madison, Tennessee, has achieved a 30-35% reduction in its energy expenditure due to this change alone. Real change happens in small steps, and Jacob Holm is dedicated to reducing our impact in every way possible.

Jacob Holm embraces sustainability on all levels – including the artistic. By partnering with French eco-designer Gérard Dumora, we’re able to contribute our non-woven fabrics to industrial and urban art projects through an initiative Dumora calls Vortex-X.

Up-cycling Jacob Holm nonwoven fabrics, Vortex-X creates sculptures of intricate, gossamer strands. Our material is sliced ​​into strings, then stretched and tied in precise angles, gracing public spaces and industrial sites with sculptures called “wipe webs.” In this way, we’re not only providing raw materials for artists, but also finding value for the public in industrial waste.

Through these art installations, Jacob Holm and Vortex-X hope to inspire viewers and encourage the practice of upcycling. To find out where you can view a Vortex-X exhibition, www.vortex075.com has information about all past and future sculptures.

All of Jacob Holm’s production facilities continuously seek new and innovative solutions for processing waste. Our sustainability flagship plant in Soultz, France, is leading the way in the French cradle of textiles. Through thoughtful reuse and recycling of materials, as well as improved internal and external waste management processes, Jacob Holm Soultz reached a zero waste to landfill benchmark in 2013. 

In addition, the Soultz plant continually implements processes that minimize our use of water— recycling ninety percent of our most precious resource — and energy.

Soultz is an inspiration within the Jacob Holm family, setting an example for the rest of our facilities. And, we hope, for the rest of the industry.