Corozo is a natural material derived from the seed of the Tagua Palm (Phytelephas macrocarpa), a tree native to equatorial rainforests across northern South America. When dried and cured, Tagua seeds develop a dense, ivory-like structure that can be cut, polished, and formed into buttons - producing a material that is renewable, biodegradable, and more scratch-resistant than most synthetic alternatives.

Corozo buttons are used by Nui across several garments in our range as a direct replacement for petroleum-derived plastic buttons.

How Corozo Buttons Are Made

The production process is slow by design - which is part of what makes the material genuinely sustainable rather than a marketing claim.

1. Tree maturation Tagua Palms take approximately 15 years to reach maturity and begin producing seeds suitable for button manufacturing. Once mature, a single tree produces enough seeds for 2,000-3,000 buttons per season and continues bearing fruit for over a century - making it a genuinely long-term renewable resource rather than a crop that requires replanting.

2. Harvest Tagua fruits grow in large clusters and are harvested when fully ripened. The outer casing is broken apart to access the seeds inside.

3. Curing Harvested seeds are sun-dried and allowed to cure for approximately one year. During this process, the seed's internal structure hardens as moisture evaporates, developing the dense, compact composition that gives corozo its durability. Fully cured seeds take on an appearance closely resembling ivory - which historically led to corozo being called "vegetable ivory."

4. Processing Cured seeds are cut, shaped, drilled, and polished into finished buttons. The natural variation in each seed means corozo buttons have subtle differences in tone and grain - a characteristic of the material rather than a quality inconsistency.

The entire process from harvest to finished button involves no synthetic inputs and no petroleum-derived materials.

Corozo vs Plastic Buttons: Key Differences

Why Plastic Buttons Are an Environmental Problem

Buttons are among the smallest components of a garment - and among the most overlooked in sustainability assessments. But the aggregate impact is significant.

Conventional clothing buttons are manufactured from petroleum-derived plastics - the same category of material as polyester fabric, single-use packaging, and other synthetic polymers that do not biodegrade. At end of garment life, plastic buttons go to landfill, where they persist for centuries, or into waterways, where they contribute to microplastic pollution.

Global clothing production exceeds 150 billion garments annually. At an average of four to six buttons per garment, the volume of petroleum-derived plastic entering waste streams through buttons alone is substantial - and almost entirely untracked in industry environmental reporting.

Replacing plastic buttons with corozo across a garment line is a small intervention with a compounding effect: every garment produced removes a plastic component from the waste stream and replaces it with one that will biodegrade completely at end of life.

The Rainforest Economics of Corozo

Tagua Palm trees grow wild in rainforest ecosystems - they are not farmed in cleared land, but harvested from intact forest. This creates a direct economic relationship between forest preservation and button production: standing rainforest generates income; cleared land does not.

This is the economic mechanism that makes corozo a genuine conservation tool, not just a sustainable material choice. Local communities in Ecuador, Colombia, and Brazil earn livelihoods from Tagua harvesting and processing. That income gives the forest measurable economic value in its intact state - creating market-based incentive to resist deforestation that subsistence farming or cattle grazing cannot provide.

Rainforest deforestation currently accounts for approximately 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The Amazon rainforest alone is home to an estimated 10% of all known plant and animal species on Earth. Tropical forests also function as carbon sinks - absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere at a scale that makes their preservation one of the most cost-effective climate interventions available, significantly less expensive per tonne of CO2 than industrial emissions reduction.

Corozo production is one specific supply chain decision that connects garment manufacturing to rainforest preservation through direct economic incentive.

Corozo Button Properties: Performance as Well as Sustainability

Corozo is not a sustainability compromise. Its material properties make it a genuinely superior button material in several respects:

Scratch resistance: the dense cellular structure of cured Tagua seed is harder than most synthetic plastics, making corozo buttons more resistant to surface scratching and abrasion during wear and washing.

Colourfast: corozo takes dye evenly and retains colour well through repeated washing - a practical durability advantage over plastic buttons, which can fade or discolour.

Natural aesthetic: the slight variation in grain and tone between individual buttons is a characteristic of the natural material. No two corozo buttons are identical.

Washing durability: corozo buttons are machine washable and maintain their structural integrity through normal laundry conditions.

Biodegradable at end of life: when a Nui garment is eventually composted or disposed of, corozo buttons will biodegrade alongside the merino wool - leaving no synthetic residue.

Where Corozo Buttons Appear in the Nui Range

Corozo buttons are used on the following Nui garments:

• Wha Dress
• Augustin Sweater
• Bernard Cardigan

Every component of a Nui garment is chosen with the same criteria as the fabric - natural, durable, and designed to leave the smallest footprint possible. Explore the collection.