coat hanger company Mainetti uses blockchain to help global brands meet climate and environmental goals

by Arthur · March 13, 2023

Mainetti, which designs and manufactures hangers for many global brands, uses blockchain technology to help customers keep track of their progress towards climate and sustainability goals.

Working with a technology partner, the Italy-based firm is plowing HK$1 million (US$127,000) into the first-phase development of a blockchain-based admission and validation system in Hong Kong, said regional director Paul Tai, who oversees its Asia operations. except India by Mainetti.

With a commercialization target set for May, the system will digitally record and facilitate independent verification of the carbon footprint of customers’ activities across the supply chain, from raw material procurement to logistics.

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“Without digitization tools, it would be extremely difficult to verify the carbon footprints throughout the supply chain,” Tai said.

Blockchain is a type of distributed ledger maintained by different computer nodes on a network, which facilitates the automation and streamlining of complex data tracking for large volumes of products and processes.

Under traditional tracking methods, a product made with multiple raw materials must obtain carbon footprint certificates for each input and provide for separate audits, which Tai says is cumbersome and inefficient.

He would not reveal the name of the technology partner, but said it is a Europe-focused multinational collaboration that has helped food sector clients use blockchain to track food safety and organic farming practices in their supply chain.

China is among Mainetti’s top three markets, contributing over 20 percent of global sales. Mainetti sells hangers and other packaging products to both global and local brands and retailers, such as Decathlon, H&M and Walmart.

Mainetti, which claims to be the world’s largest hanger company, helped customers process about one billion reused and recycled hangers last year, Tai said.

The privately owned company, which does not publish financial results, has around 6,000 employees spread over 90 locations on six continents.

The sustainability needs of their customers when it comes to hangers have changed over time, shifting from a focus on reducing raw material content to using more recycled raw materials, he noted.

“Over the last five to six years, they’ve been thinking more holistically about trailer needs and sometimes joining our design efforts for innovative solutions,” he said. “They are now asking for bigger and more powerful hangers that can last through five to six sales cycles.”

Mainetti has been working with an undisclosed Hong Kong-listed papermaking partner to use special glues to fuse paper together to make three-dimensional hangers, and use chemicals to waterproof them.

“Production capacity for these innovative hangers … is fully booked by customers for up to six months,” he said, citing limited quantities of sustainable raw materials.

Hangers with recycled and biodegradable materials now make up over 50 percent of the company’s production, surpassing those using virgin plastic and paper materials. The reduction in carbon dioxide emissions resulting from the use of recycled and sustainable materials in Mainetti’s 2022 production is estimated at around 84,000 tonnes, Tai said.

Sustainable materials range from plastic waste collected from the coast, household waste, compostable plant waste, to sugar cane and recycled paper, which are usually mixed with new plastic and paper to create more sustainable packaging.

He expects this ratio to peak at around 70 percent in about five years, even as companies accelerate their sustainability efforts, since children’s clothing manufacturers will continue to use hangers made from virgin materials to avoid the risk of metal contamination for safety reasons.

Customers’ motivation for sustainability varies, with mass retailers driven primarily by the cost savings achieved via waste reduction, he said.

“Luxury brands, meanwhile, are driven more by the opportunity to build awareness of their contribution to environmental protection and climate mitigation,” he added.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter sides. Copyright © 2023 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.