The global fashion industry consumes trillions of gallons of water each year to make clothes, and textile dyeing is a major source of both water use and pollution. By employing bacteria to replicate colors found in nature, a UK biotech can produce dyes with a fraction of the water used in conventional methods and no toxic chemicals.

Colorifix Ltd., based in Norwich, England, identifies feathers, insects and plants that display the hues it wants to create. Then it digitally sources the DNA sequence responsible for the natural pigment and engineers bacteria to produce the color. Through a fermentation process similar to making beer, the microorganisms are fed water, sugar, yeast, and plant byproducts, and within a couple of days they generate a large volume of dye liquor that can be used in standard machines by commercial dye houses. “As long as we give them water and nutrients, they’ll keep dividing and growing and making the color,” says Orr Yarkoni, co-founder and chief executive officer of Colorifix.