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There are so many ways the fashion industry is harming the planet. Pesticides used to grow crops to make natural fabrics like cotton . Toxic dyes . Fossil fuels are used to make synthetic fibres, often woven into cheap clothes bought by the armful and worn just a few times before they are discarded. This kind of clothing leaches microplastics into rivers and oceans with each wash. Production processes result in a lot of waste, with unused fabrics heading straight for the scrap heap.

With fashion, it seems that each way you turn there is another environmental problem just waiting in the wings. Transforming this industry into a sustainable one seems a gargantuan task.

But thanks to cutting-edge scientific ideas, from circular weaving to protein design, it might just be possible to turn things around. A few weeks ago, I headed to a new exhibition in London hosted by The Mills Fabrica, a company that funds and encourages promising fashion and agrifood start-ups.

The display, which is open until 30 September, features a collection of 鈥減lanet-saving innovations鈥� from across the worlds of fashion and science. Some of those on show are truly mind-boggling 鈥� here鈥檚 my pick of the best.

Unspun

3D printing has long been hailed as a technology that could disrupt globalised production processes, with promises of microfactories in local communities. Everything from a new phone case to a washer for your leaking tap could be made to order in a mini-factory just down the road from your home.

Now imagine we could do the same thing, but with fashion. Instead of making huge quantities of cheap clothing in factories thousands of miles away from stores, fashion brands could instead have local manufacturing hubs churning out garments on demand for nearby customers.

Until now, that was a pipe dream. Sure, it was possible to 3D-print a phone case, but there was no such thing as a machine that could produce a woven garment directly from yarn rather than from flat sheets of fabric.

Enter , a US start-up that has invented what it says is the first 3D weaving technology for clothing. Its brainchild is the Vega machine, a loom that turns thread into fabric, but rather than a flat cloth emerging from one end, the device weaves in a circle to produce tubes of cloth.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a completely new concept,鈥� says Annika Visser at Unspun. 鈥淎s far as we know, nobody else in the world is doing this for apparel manufacturing.鈥�

Making clothing this way cuts out multiple steps of production, from weaving to material finishing, pattern cutting and sewing, says Visser. This saves waste; in traditional processes, about 15 per cent of fabric ends up on the cutting room floor. It also means brands can flex their output according to demand, rather than holding millions of dollars worth of surplus stock that frequently ends up in landfill, .

3D weaving is also a time saver. Unspun is focused on making trousers. One of its Vega machines can weave two tubes of fabric in 10 minutes. The legs then need to be stitched together and finishings, such as a zipper, buttons and hems, added. 鈥淵ou can go from yarn to finished garment, all under one roof, within 25 minutes,鈥� says Visser.

Saving time, waste and labour all mean 3D weaving a pair of trousers has the potential to be far cheaper than producing a pair the traditional way 鈥� which will allow brands to base their manufacturing where their customers are and adopt an on-demand model of production, selling what local people want to buy.

鈥淭he signals are very strong that brands, retailers鈥� are looking to localise their production,鈥� says Visser. 鈥淎nd in order to localise production, you are going to have to find a way to cut back on costs.鈥�

鈥淭he dream is that we set up these factories, localised, so in the US, in Europe, that production is happening maybe 100 kilometres away from where the shops are,鈥� she adds.

In March, Unspun teamed up with US retailer Walmart to work on a pilot project that aims to have 350 Vega machines weaving trousers for its shops by 2030, set up in 鈥渕icrosites鈥� across the US. The first product is likely to be men鈥檚 chinos, to be sold under Walmart鈥檚 George clothing brand.

Solena

Imagine wearing a raincoat made from fabric that is as soft as cashmere, but as waterproof as plastic. Or a pair of gym leggings that feel like silk, but are as stretchy as spandex. That is the promise behind , a British biomaterials start-up using artificial intelligence to discover new types of fibre.

Solena鈥檚 founder James MacDonald trained as a physicist and used computers to analyse and design proteins before his chance attendance at an event looking at the development of novel textiles prompted him to embark on a career in fashion.

鈥淎t the time, I was working on computational protein design, so intuitively I thought there must be some application for using computational protein design in developing novel materials,鈥� he says.

Natural fibres like cotton and silk tend to lack toughness and are intensive to produce, while synthetic fibres tend to rely on fossil fuels for production and shed microplastics that ultimately end up in the ocean.

MacDonald aims to solve the problems of existing fibres by making a whole new class of biodegradable, functional, protein-based ones. Solena has developed a platform that quickly tests the performance of new proteins, performing hundreds of measurements per minute. The data from these tests is then used to train AI software to develop new proteins that can form the basis of high-performance, biodegradeable fabrics.

鈥淲e are exploring de novo designed proteins,鈥� says MacDonald. 鈥淭hese are not natural protein sequences. We are designing the sequences computationally from scratch.鈥�

Once a protein is identified, MacDonald and his team 鈥渂rew鈥� it in a microbial solution before it is spun into fibres. Theoretically, the AI platform could develop a protein with any characteristics you might want 鈥� such as an ultrasoft raincoat or a colour-changing T-shirt. 鈥淲e have a platform that can explore a very vast universe of possible fibre types,鈥� says MacDonald.

Solena is still at the lab stage, operating as a spin-out from Imperial College London. Work is under way to design the scale-up process for fibre production, which is likely to require large fermentation tanks. MacDonald says his team has already developed new fibres for premium sportswear and are also working on replacements for luxury animal fibres like wool and silk. 鈥淓ventually we could create all kinds of things we can鈥檛 even imagine at the moment,鈥� he says.

PACT

The ethical reasons for avoiding leather are well-rehearsed, but the environmental factors are often overlooked. Most leather is made using the skin of cows, sheep and goats, supporting a livestock industry responsible for around 11 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN鈥檚 Food and Agriculture Organization.

Traditional leather comprises 90 per cent collagen. Oval, a new material from UK start-up PACT, uses the same building blocks, but instead of using livestock animals, it is made from collagen collected from waste fish scales. In this way, Oval recreates the texture and performance of luxury leather with less water consumption, carbon emissions, land use and waste, says PACT founder Yudi Ding. Where conventional cow skin leather has a carbon footprint of around 110 kilograms per square metre of fabric, PACT says Oval鈥檚 footprint is about 3 kg per square metre, without backing material.

鈥淚ts environmental footprint is minimised across the entire production process, and the collagen is ethically gathered as a by-product from sustainable freshwater fish farms,鈥� says Ding.

The solution is better than other leather alternatives, which are generally made from plastic or natural materials like pineapple, cork or apple peel, says Ding. 鈥淯nlike materials made from other biomass sources, Oval鈥檚 collagen base allows for supreme flexibility, handfeel and endless customisation, from precise colour to intricate embellishments,鈥� he says.

Oval products aren鈥檛 on sale yet, but Ding says PACT is working with multiple luxury fashion brands to develop the material to turn it into leather goods, footwear and clothing.

Of course, there are huge question marks over the sustainability of aquaculture, which now accounts for about half of all seafood we eat. Farmed seafood can help to preserve wild fisheries while providing a nutritious food source, but certain farmed seafood, such as salmon, . There are also questions around 聽animal welfare on fish farms and their impact on the surrounding environment.

Cynthia Adu at PACT says Oval is only made using collagen certified as sourced from the best-run farms. She also points out that Oval is made using a waste product, avoiding the use of raw materials including fossil fuels. 鈥淲hilst Oval is made from aquaculture collagen, our innovation can allow us to leverage different sources of collagen-rich wastes or by-products from various industries,鈥� says Adu.