The NATURALfiberEXTRACTION Congress intends to promote sustainable business, showing solutions to effectively process plant-based raw materials and residues into fibers for clothing, home textiles and technical applications. The focus of the congress is on industrialized fiber extraction, as this is where fiber and textile technology know-how is most needed.

At the premiere event, we focussed on the topic of Industrial processing of renewable raw and residual materials. To achieve the minimum climate targets, there is an urgent need to develop sustainable CO2 -neutral materials and to reduce energy consumption at once. Especially for natural fibers, the corresponding economic industrial processing methods in regional cycles must be developed, to reduce both costs and the environmental impact of transportation. Finally, environmental pollution, e. g. caused by microplastics, has to be avoided. Increasing deforestation worldwide contributes to about 12 - 15% of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition to reforestation, the cultivation of fast-growing annual plants can contribute significantly to reduce CO2 concentrations. Currently, there are many different machinery technologies on the market worldwide to process natural fibers.