Meet Banfab, India’s Quiet Textile Sustainability Revolution

IN the textile hub of Coimbatore, southern India, a small but ambitious company is transforming agricultural waste into high-value fibres that could change the way the global fashion industry thinks about sustainability.

That company is Banfab Textiles, and its innovation lies in one of the world’s most unassuming crops: the humble banana.

Bananas are among the most widely consumed fruits in the world, with India alone producing more than 30% of the global supply. Yet once the fruit is harvested, the pseudo-stem of the banana plant, essentially agricultural waste, has traditionally been left to rot or burned, contributing to environmental pollution.

Banfab’s breakthrough is to create soft, spinnable fibre from this discarded material, turning waste into a resource that can rival cotton, linen, or even polyester.

A Revolution in Coimbatore

“No land is used to grow the fibre, because ultimately it is agri-waste,” explains Nessa O’Connell, a London-based product development consultant who has been working with Banfab for the past three years.

“After harvesting the fruit, the tree is cut down and left to rot or it’s burned. But with Banfab’s process, farmers can extract fibre, earn an income from what was once worthless, and even return the residual pulp back to the soil as fertilizer. It’s a win on multiple fronts.”

Through a farmer buyback model, Banfab educates smallholders in fibre extraction from the banana plant’s pseudostem. This practice not only prevents waste and enriches soil health but also provides farmers with an additional source of income, offsetting the cost of removing banana stems from their fields.

O’Connell, who has spent over 30 years in the fashion and textile industry working with brands like Gap and Speedo, first discovered Banfab at a trade fair. She immediately saw the potential of banana fibre: a natural, sustainable material that is soft enough for apparel, versatile enough for technical fabrics, and grown without adding pressure to the planet’s resources.

At the heart of Banfab’s innovation is a proprietary enzyme-based softening process. Traditionally, banana fibre has been coarse and stiff, more useful perhaps for rope or industrial materials, but unsuitable for everyday clothing. By applying a unique enzyme treatment, Banfab has created a fibre that is not only spinnable but also comfortable, breathable, and blendable with other natural materials such as cotton and linen.

After harvesting the fruit, the tree is cut down and left to rot or it’s burned. But with Banfab’s process, farmers can extract fibre, earn an income from what was once worthless, and even return the residual pulp back to the soil as fertilizer. It’s a win on multiple fronts.” ~ Nessa O’Connell

A Founder Driven by Engineering and Vision

At the heart of this story is Banfab’s founder, Mr. Sivakumar, an engineer by qualification and the heart and soul of the enterprise.

Having worked in textiles and garments since 1989, Sivakumar turned his focus toward banana fibre research and development in 2016. After years of experimentation, his breakthrough came in late 2018 when he successfully created a 60:40 banana fibre and organic cotton blend yarn, marking a major milestone in natural-fibre innovation.

He incorporated Banfab Textiles in 2019, and under his leadership the company has carried out pilot and sampling projects with leading brands across the US and Europe. Today, Banfab continues to evolve, expanding applications through continuous R&D to push the boundaries of what banana fibre can become.

The Sustainability Case for Banana Fibre

The environmental benefits are significant. According to lifecycle analysis (LCA), for every kilogram of banana fibre used in place of cotton, 10,000 litres of water are saved. This represents a massive potential reduction in textile-related water consumption considering cotton is one of the most water-intensive crops on the planet.

The fibre also boasts other advantages:

Carbon footprint reduction: Unlike cotton, no chemical pesticides or fertilizers are required.

Energy efficiency: Fibre extraction is primarily mechanical, with low energy inputs.

Land savings: Since banana fibre comes from existing agricultural waste, no additional farmland is required.

Chemical free production cycle

Further, Banfab’s proprietary enzyme-based process uses no chemicals at all to increase fibre spinnability, ensuring a completely chemical-free production cycle. This clean-tech approach positions the company as a true pioneer in sustainable material processing.

The fibre’s inherent properties also stand out: it is antibacterial, antimicrobial, and fully biodegradable, giving it natural advantages over both synthetic and even some organic fibres. In durability tests, banana fibre demonstrates 1.7 times the strength of cotton, enhancing its wear-and-tear resilience for long-life textile products.

“I particularly like the 60% banana and 40% organic cotton blend,” O’Connell says. “It feels very much like cotton but carries with it a sustainability story that resonates with modern brands and consumers.”

Adding to its sustainability edge, Banfab benefits from its location in the Coimbatore–Tirupur textile cluster. Within a 150–200 km radius, the entire chain — fibre, yarn, fabric, dyeing, and garment manufacturing — can be completed locally. This geographic concentration dramatically reduces carbon emissions tied to transportation, setting a benchmark for regional circularity.

Banana Fibre in Practice

Banana fibre is not just theory. It is already finding its way into a variety of applications:

Fashion and apparel: Early sampling has included brands as diverse as Zara Home and Victoria’s Secret.

Workwear/School uniforms: Its antimicrobial properties make it a strong candidate for uniforms and protective clothing.

Home textiles: Banana-cotton blends are being trialled for shirting, suiting, upholstery, and bedding fabrics.

Medical use: Diabetic socks and hospital garments are being explored due to the fibre’s breathability and antibacterial qualities.

Emerging areas include footwear and mattress fabrics, while ongoing R&D continues to expand into specialty textile and lifestyle products based on client demand.

A Brand Gaining Global Recognition

Banfab has quietly built relationships with some of the world’s most recognised fashion houses and manufacturers across the US and EU. The company is already a familiar name in sustainability and sourcing circles and is now listed on the Higg Materials Sustainability Index (MSI) — a key step that will help further commercialisation with major global brands.

As O’Connell notes, “With fashion, it will likely be the designer labels and premium brands that lead adoption. They have the budget and appetite to experiment, and once they embrace it, it will trickle down to high-street retailers and mass market.”

The story of banana fibre is also playing out elsewhere. In a recent Future Now Green News article and LinkedIn post that attracted more than 30,000 impressions, we highlighted how reports on the internet claim Vietnamese schools were adopting uniforms made from banana fibre, a biodegradable and breathable alternative to polyester. That initiative underscored the global potential of banana fibre not just as an environmental solution, but as a healthier one — avoiding the microplastics and chemical leaching associated with synthetic fabrics.

Banfab’s model is different but complementary, targeting the global fashion and textile industry with an innovation-driven product that meets international certification standards.

Part of a Bigger Sustainability Shift

The rise of banana fibre sits within a much broader trend in the textile sector. Sustainability is a commercial imperative, and no longer an option. From Chinese company InResST’s regenerated nylon made from discarded ghost fishing nets and ocean waste and offering stale, filament fiber or chips suitable for a variety of things including clothing, accessories and packaging, for example, to Piñatex’s pineapple-leaf leather, to Bananatex’s abaca-based materials for bags, innovators are racing to find scalable alternatives to resource-intensive fibres.

Banfab is still a small company. Its founder, a passionate R&D specialist, prefers the lab to the limelight, often dividing his time between India and Dubai where Banfab has a marketing presence. The company relies on collaborations with spinning mills and cooperatives across southern India to process its fibre into yarn and fabric.

Yet the potential scale is enormous. With India already the world’s largest producer of bananas — and with similar opportunities in Africa, Latin America and Australia — Banfab envisions a future where millions of tonnes of fibre could be produced annually, reshaping the global textile market.

Price remains a challenge.

“At the moment, banana fibre is more expensive than organic cotton,” O’Connell admits. “But with steady demand, economies of scale will bring costs down. The key is getting to that tipping point.”

For decades, the fashion industry has relied heavily on cotton, polyester, and other fibres whose environmental toll is increasingly untenable. Banana fibre, once an overlooked by-product of fruit production, now stands at the forefront of the next chapter in sustainable textiles.

As O’Connell puts it: “Banana fibre is still quite a niche fiber, but Banfab is more than a few steps ahead of the crowd with proven proprietary enzyme treatment for softening the fiber, great quality fabrics and yarns, and it’s now achieved a Higg MSI listing. Brands won’t just see banana fibre as a quirky experiment. They’ll see it as a certified, scalable solution to some of the fashion industry’s deepest sustainability problems.”

The Future is Biodegradable

Unlike synthetic fibres that linger for centuries in landfills, Banfab’s fabrics — made entirely from natural fibres — biodegrade at the end of their life cycle, leaving no toxic residue. Combined with its SGS certification for fibre content and carbon, and ISCC Plus certification for sustainable carbon management, and a Higg Index listing, the company’s credentials speak for themselves.

From the fields of southern India to the runways of Paris and the showrooms of London, Banfab’s journey reflects a larger truth: the future of fashion may depend less on what we grow for fibre, and more on what we rescue from waste.

To Learn More

Visit Banfab: https://banfab.com/

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