The brand is a variant of the presently available Liva brand of viscose fibre.
Riding on the success of its Liva brand of viscose fibre, Grasim Industries has introduced a new variant Livaeco, which promises to be more sustainable and environment friendly.
"Textile industry is the second most polluting sector after oil. Through Livaeco, we are hoping to give a sustainable alternative," Dilip Gaur, Managing Director of Grasim, told Moneycontrol.
Viscose is an alternative to cotton and polyester fibres to make garments.
To be launched by April, Livaeco will be first available exclusively in stores of W brand. "For the first two seasons, Livaeco will be found in 300 stores of W across the country," said Rajeev Gopal, Group Executive President, Grasim.
The company aims to sell 4 lakh garments that carry the Livaeco tag, this year.
Liva's success
Launched in 2015, Liva has helped drive the growth of viscose fibre in the textile industry. "Till Liva was launched, the segment was stagnating. But in the past four years, the segment has grown by a CAGR of 14 percent, while the overall industry grew 7 percent," said Gaur.
Liva-tagged garments are sold by 40 retail brands, across 3,500 outlets in 250 cities.
While the company has sold 3.5 crore Liva garments till now, the target is to take the sales to 4.5 crore this year.
"Liva has helped doubling the viscose fibre consumption in the Country over past four years. Viscose business has been registering a double digit growth in the last few years and market share has gone up from 3.5 percent to 5 percent in the last four years," added Gaur.
Grasim has invested Rs 500 crore in the Liva brand.
Sustainability
Grasim is hoping to ride on wider acceptability and demand for environment-friendly garments.
Every year, 80 billion pieces of garment are bought, and half of them are disposed off within a year, causing harm to environment.
"Polyester stays for 400 years. Livaeco garments, on the other hand, completely decompose within six weeks," said Gaur.
He added that compared to a t-shirt made of cotton, which needs 2,750 litres of water to be made, a Livaeco t-shirt needs 150 litres of water.
"And cotton is land intensive too," said Gaur.
"We also have the tracer technology in Livaeco. Through a QR code, a customer can know which forest and from which plant the fibre was made," said Gaur.
Investor appeal
Reiterating that the product will appeal to investors, Gaur said, "If we don't innovate and be sustainable, the business may be lost... the tipping point will come within five years. The volume can be higher than that of Liva's."
At present, the textile industry is dominated by polyester, which makes up for up to 65 percent, and cotton, which has a share of 30 percent. The rest is made of viscose fibre.
