Public Funding for Oxford Biopigments Ltd

Oxford Biopigments is a small start-up company with an interest in sustainable textile dyes and a simple question: how can we do things better? Textile dyes cause problems at every stage of their life. They are produced in an energy intensive and environmentally unfriendly manner, they are made from petrochemicals such as oil and natural gas, they pollute rivers and oceans when they are used and at the end of a textile's life they don't break down easily in the environment causing yet more pollution. We want to change this paradigm. To this end we have developed a world first in sustainable dyes; plant-based dyes that meet the industry standards for colourfastness and achieve the same technical performance as petrochemical synthetic dyes. This project will provide pre-commercialisation support to help us better understand the broader market for our dyes. As part of this it will allow us to produce colour samples in pilot-scale machinery and to develop a marketing plan alongside relevant market research.

Oxford Biopigments is a small start-up company with an interest in textile dyes and a simple question: how can we do things better? Textile dyes cause problems at every stage of their life. They are produced in an energy intensive and environmentally unfriendly manner, they are made from petrochemicals such as oil and natural gas, they pollute rivers and oceans when they are used and at the end of a textile's life they don't break down easily in the environment causing yet more pollution. We want to change this paradigm. This project aims to develop sustainable, colour-fast, textile dyes that can be mixed and matched to obtain any colour by dyeing. By using plant-based dyes we use and fix carbon from the atmosphere whilst ensuring a shift away from petrochemical use in one of the most environmentally damaging parts of the apparel supply chain.