Footwear fabric supplier to expand its use of PFAS-free Empel
A Taiwan-based supplier of materials for footwear, Gold Long John, has announced that it has begun applying Empel to fabrics at its mill in Vietnam and intends to expand its use of the Empel platform to other production facilities.
Empel, developed by US company Green Theme Technologies (GTT), endows fabrics with durable water-repellent, stain-release and anti-wick functionality. The platform uses no water and is free from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). With Empel, anti-wicking chemistries are molecularly bonded to footwear, protecting shoes and wearers from wet weather.
Gold Long John installed proprietary Empel machinery at its Vietnamese mill in 2023. This equipment is now in use there and the fabrics producer has said it will also install the machinery at a facility in Taiwan.
President of Gold Long John, Kevin Wen, said: “GTT and its Empel products will help us stay at the forefront of global sustainability solutions, allowing us to supply footwear brands with highly innovative, cleaner, better-performing materials for their products. We see this as a win for us, for our partner brands and for global sustainability efforts.”
For his part, GTT’s president of global business development, Martin Flora, explained that Gold Long John had been the first major footwear mill in Asia to adopt Empel. He said the Taiwanese company had been “instrumental in providing the commercial readiness needed for major footwear brands to easily adopt Empel”.
He added: “Empel creates the highest-performing finishes available. Because of Gold Long John’s contribution and input, we are now able to scale our clean chemistry throughout south-east Asia and make a real difference in the fight against water, carbon and chemical pollution.”
