Australian Wool Innovation appoints John Roberts as chief executive

What are the biggest challenges facing Australia’s billion-dollar wool industry? The new boss of Australian Wool Innovation reveals all.

THE new head of Australian Wool Innovation, John Roberts, said EU’s push for environmental accountability had the potential to be a major problem for the industry.

But at the other end of the production cycle, simply getting enough people to shear sheep also presented an enormous challenge.

John Roberts was this week appointed as the chief executive officer of AWI, replacing Stuart McCulloch who was moved to another position within the company late last year.

Mr Roberts, who had been acting in the role for the past four months, said fighting for wool’s place was more than marketing.

The wool industry needed to be across challenges like the Product Environmental Footprint, which gives a scorecard of environmental performance of a good or service.

This could potentially paint the wool industry in a bad light so needed to be addressed.

“Basically, there is the same methodology for all fibres in a one size fits all,” Mr Roberts said.

“The methodology they are using or proposing to roll out is that they don’t’ talk about pre-retail so they don’t talk about the energy used to make the synthetic fibre, but they do measure methane (from sheep).

“They don’t talk about how much water is used in the life of a garment, which is more often for synthetics than wool or the fact there are no microplastics in wool.

“The worst thing is that the footprint does not talk about the afterlife so what happens when the garment life is finished – wool is biodegradable but synthetic fibres are there in the ground for perpetuity.

“It’s not fair and that’s why we are fighting the fight for the wool industry at the moment – we are really focussed on this.”

Wool harvesting is another threat to the industry and the ability to source enough staff to fill roles from shearers to shed hands to classers.

Mr Roberts said wool harvesting was one of his top five priorities in his new role and is “absolutely, the most urgent one”.

Despite the challenges, Mr Roberts said wool could have a strong future.

“It should be a special time for all natural fibres at the moment and especially for wool in terms of where consumer priorities lie at the moment,” he said.

“Wool needs to be front of mind at a global consumer level as a sustainable dynamic fibre at the demand end.

“All of wool’s key characteristics like its sustainable credentials and its eco credentials – we need to make sure they are front of mind and understood in a really competitive textile world.”

Mr Roberts has extensive history in the wool industry, including family connections on a property near Yass, NSW, when he was growing up. He has risen from his first job as a shipping clerk in a wool buying company to holding key wool trading roles in some of the biggest organisation in the industry both in Australia and overseas.

Mr Roberts said he was armed for the challenge of lifting wool’s standing in the world, and said it had every reason to be highly desirable in a market turning away from fast fashion.

“Synthetics and fast fashion are facing a crisis – they rely on high volume and low margins, whereas wool has a lower volume of sales but a higher margin,” he said.

“It is bewildering that the fashion industry has been dominated by synthetic fibres and wool has not received the positive story that it should.”

AWI Chairman Jock Laurie said Mr Roberts was a wool industry leader with extensive experience in Australia and three years working in China.

“John has in depth knowledge of the key players throughout the industry from the farm gate to the fashion catwalk,” Mr Laurie said.

“He has a big job to do in addressing many issues on behalf of Australia’s woolgrowers including tackling the shortage of shearers plus keeping Australian wool as the world’s premium natural fibre”.