Retail giant Walmart and Rubi Laboratories have announced pilot projects aiming to capture carbon emissions from manufacturers and facilities in the Walmart supply chain and convert them into a garment prototype – with zero waste.

“When I toured the Rubi facility earlier this year, I got to see their carbon capture process first-hand and it felt like magic, this creation of something seemingly out of thin air,” said Andrea Albright, EVP of sourcing at Walmart. “Rubi founders Neeka and Leila Mashouf took inspiration from how trees “eat” CO2 to create the cellulose they need to grow, and have figured out a way to mimic this natural process in the lab. Their patent-pending process, like trees, captures and converts carbon emissions, spinning the resulting cellulose into something we all need – fabric. 

The manufacturing pilot will examine how Rubi’s technology could be integrated at a larger scale in the Walmart supply chain and test the capture of carbon emissions at some of Walmart’s own facilities. The brand pilot will test Rubi’s fiber performance in a prototype garment, with the goal of producing garment samples.