Making a difference for animals

Today is World Animal Day, a day with a mission: to raise the status of animals in order to improve welfare standards around the globe. Building the celebration of World Animal Day mobilises people for action now for a better future for animals.

The garments we produce

As a global market leader in professional protective clothing, we chose not to use any animal derived fabrics. Not an obvious choice, because leather, wool and fur are obvious choices when it comes to protecting against cold and chafe protection.

But since protection is our daily business and the production of fabrics and textiles is too, we’ve come up with alternatives that are even better than the organic ones. The textiles we develop, and produce are high tech, manmade and offer the best imaginable protection. Here, our 220 heads counting team of researchers and developers play a decisive role. They always come up with the best technical fabric for the best protection.

A great example of how manmade fabrics entirely replace leather are the fire fighter's intervention suits. Until the nineties, leather was the ultimate fabric for fire intervention suits. Today they are all made with manmade technically way superior fabrics.

The fabrics made with technical fibers and combined in multi-layers have proven their superiority both in terms of safety and comfort. Fabrics are mainly made of aramid and have superior mechanical resistance, allowing lighter weights for comfort. The water and oil repellent surface treatments on the fabrics permit the compliance with the requirements for protection against fluids (hydrocarbons, rain, water). The very essential thermal protection is ensured by the aramids with the adequate design and manufacture of the vests, storing, like in a thermos flask, a maximum air volume between the skin and the outer layer of the vest. Finally, visibility is made easy by adopting vivid colours such as yellow, red and gold for the aramid. Although this tendency is only very recent. Before, even fire fighters' clothes made of fabrics were black (or blue).

Small actions, great results

At Sioen, we put great effort in biodiversity. Diversity tout court. Our people, with a myriad of nationalities, gender, convictions and believes, produce a multitude of products for a very wide range of applications. You name it, we have it. And by it, we mean textile solutions tailored to your requirements; Whether they are yarns, fibers, woven or nonwoven fabrics, coated or uncoated and even professional protective clothing, pigment pastes and inks.

With this principle in mind, it is not surprising that we also strive for diversity on and around our industrial buildings and areas. Where we can, we create green zones, we plant trees and wild gardens in hidden corners and even install small ponds to attract insects and wildlife.

There is a pilot project with beehives in 2 of our production sites. There is a lot of food for the bees in our gardens and parks. We even sow a flower mixture that bees, butterflies and other insects love. Although small and with only local effect, this initiative is very important if you kow that more than 75% of the flower plants is pollinated by bees and that about 70% of everything that ends up on our plate depends directly (fruit, vegetables, oils, ...) or indirectly (feed plants for cattle) on that pollination.

Summum of biodiversity

The composite GreenTecStyle® that has been developed by Sioen allows to introduce living green elements in a vertical environment. It is the all-in-one solution for greening urban spaces. The GreenTecStyle® green wall concept is a lightweight, flexible textile composite with easy-to-use plant pockets. Rapidly and easily installed using keder rails, both for in- and outdoor use. This durable performance product is probably the most practical solution for green walls on the market.

And green walls (and roofs) are a heaven for many species of insects, flowers and plants. GreenTecStyle® is beacon of life, flowers attract pollinators such as bees, bumblebees, and butterflies; plants attract insects attract birds, and the substrate itself is inhabited by different trophic levels of crawling animals including snails, spiders, crustaceans, and insects such as beetles.

Animals, we care.