The first comprehensive view of the alternative plant fibre landscape across major industries—providing stakeholders the insight needed to navigate the sector, evaluate opportunities, and prioritise investment and strategic support
Across the globe, thousands of plant species provide natural fibres that have been used for millennia in textiles, construction, and tools, forming an integral part of cultural heritage and sustainable livelihoods. Despite this diversity, commercial production remains concentrated in a few fibres – foremostly cotton.
With growing demand for bio-based, low-impact materials across industries, diversifying plant fibre sources presents a significant opportunity to contribute to a circular and climate-resilient bioeconomy, while supporting land restoration, ecosystem resilience, and rural employment.
However, the sector faces persistent structural challenges, including fragmented value chains, limited investment, underdeveloped processing infrastructure, and weak market alignment.
– Scope: What are alternative plant fibres?
A woman working with henequen
Alternative plant fibres refer to all naturally derived fibres extracted from plants beyond cotton – whether from bast, seeds, fruits, stems, or other components. These fibres can originate from dedicated fibre crops such as sisal and abacá, agricultural by-products like pineapple leaves and banana stems, wild or invasive species like water hyacinth and milkweed, as well as other biomass crops such as miscanthus or switchgrass.
– Purpose: Goals of the report
– Conclusion & Recommendations: Pathways to unlock the sector’s potential
A woman working with henequen
Reimagining plant fibres as modern bio-based materials requires stronger sector coordination and collaborative action to improve production capacity, quality consistency, and processing capabilities. In the near term, building reliable supply systems and technical alignment is essential, while long-term scaling will depend on mobilising investment, strengthening market integration, and enabling supportive policy frameworks. FIBRAL aims to contribute to this transition by fostering pre-competitive collaboration, facilitating knowledge exchange, and aligning stakeholders across the plant fibre ecosystem.
About FIBRAL – Global Plant Fibre Association
FIBRAL is a global multi-stakeholder association connecting agriculture, industry and research to unlock the sustainable potential of plant fibres within a circular bioeconomy that strengthens rural livelihoods and climate resilience. We bring together producers, processors, manufacturers, buyers and academia to strengthen collaboration, build evidence on fibre production and impacts, and develop best practices. By improving coordination, transparency and capacity across the value chain, we help de-risk investment, empower producers to scale sustainable practices, and enable buyers to source plant fibres with greater confidence. https://fibral.org/
