The Walmart Foundation, along with the US Conference of Mayors announced this year’s US Manufacturing Innovation Fund grant recipients at the 84th Winter Meeting of the US Conference of Mayors in Washington, D.C.
A total of US $ 10 million fund will be granted over a course of five years for increasing focus on development of domestic manufacturing with a goal of advancing the production or assembly of consumer products in the US. This was the second round of funding, under which US $ 2.84 million has been provided to five leading research and academic institutions. “Through these grants we hope to help remove the barriers to revitalizing and growing US apparel manufacturing, while creating more sustainable production processes,” said Kathleen McLaughlin, President of the Walmart Foundation and Chief Sustainability Officer, Walmart.
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The grant was awarded to Clemson University, for energy and effluent reduction through innovative dyeing of polyester fabrics; Oregon State University, for environmentally conscious dyeing of fabrics using continuous digital printing and drying of bio-pigment inks; University of Texas at Austin, for on-loom fabric defect inspection using contact image sensors; North Carolina State University, for developing a non-stop tying-in process/approach to improve weaving efficiency; and Cornell University, for recycling post-consumer textile waste and a raw material substitute for new textiles.
Walmart aims to make production in the US more cost-effective and efficient, to ultimately create more jobs in the country, by making significant investment.
