Of all resources that the textiles and apparel industry needs to transform fibre into fashion, water is arguably the most precious and increasingly becoming scarce. It was only natural that the focus of the annual sustainable textiles summit, Planet Textiles, this year was water. From the issue of availability to judicious use of the scarce resource and the problem of wastewater pollution, it was an array of water-related subjects that dominated the one-day event in Bengaluru on May 24.
Jointly organised by MCL News & Media, publisher of Ecotextile News, and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), Planet Textiles 2017 was part of a week-long series of events on environmental and social issues in the textiles sector which included the two-day SAC annual members meeting and the SAC manufacturers’ forum earlier in the week. More than 340 delegates from 25 countries participated in the summit. Among other things, Austrian speciality fibre-maker Lenzing announced its plans to launch EcoVero, a viscose fibre with the lowest environmental impact in the industry.
Keynote speaker Tracy Nilsson, senior director for social environmental affairs at Adidas, emphasised in her address: "Water is not only essentially for life, it is a key resource for our industry. Factors, such as the ever growing population and the impacts of climate change are tipping the scale to a point where water supply may no longer meet demand. With an increases and ever growing issue of water scarcity, we have developed an overall approach to address water efficiency, improve wastewater quality and provide better accessibility to water in communities."
Contextualising the event, Jason Kibbey, CEO of the SAC, told Fibre2Fashion, "In the last five years, we have experienced lots of change and many things staying the same. One change is that now nearly all manufacturers have been exposed to sustainability issues beyond environmental health and safety. They are looking at their energy and water usage and working to reduce their chemical usage. What hasn’t changed is that the actual performance on sustainability issues within the supply chain still hasn’t significantly changed amongst a majority of the manufacturing base. What is changing in the sector overall is that instead of a small number of sustainability actors asking for improvement, these issues are now mainstream amongst nearly half of the industry.
"As the planet is deteriorating faster, there is a need to respond even more quickly. Not only do we need to build a foundation of sustainability by quickly measuring, managing, and improving our impacts, but we must build from that foundation a circular or even a restorative economy that is sufficient to address our current crisis."
Manoj Gulati, executive director (India) at NGO Water.org, pointed out, "The Indian textiles sector consumes around 830 million cubic litres of water per annum. This pressure on water availability can only go one way unless we start to act now." Water.og works with IKEA, Gap and Inditex to equip people with the means to access water and sanitation in textile producing regions. Gulati spoke about his organisation which provides micro-loans so that individuals can improve access to water and sanitation through its WaterCredit initiative, and remarked, "We address both the symptom and the cause: solve the immediate need by creating access to safe water and sanitation now, and solve the big picture by setting up a system that works at scale and lives longer than we do."
The focus of Sajid Hussain, chief operating officer of the Tamilnadu Water Investment Company Limited, was zero liquid discharge (ZLD). Hussain spoke about company's ZLD project which involves a range of advanced wastewater treatment technologies to recycle, recover and re-use treated wastewater and thereby ensure there is no discharge of wastewater into the environment. He said, “ZLD is a technological challenge, and the focus now must be on zero waste disposal (ZWD). In the end, water scarcity, water economics and regulatory pressure will be the main drivers of ZLD and ultimately will determine the financial viability of this technology."
The latter half of the tightly-packed event was dominated by animated discussions during the breakout sessions which focused on practical, sustainable, solutions for textile wet processing, chemical management and discharge, and pollution. Discussing current issues surround textile wet processing, and where implementation in the textile value chain can be accelerated, Elaine Gardiner, sustainability manager, AFIRM Group and Pentland Brands said collaboration was the right way to go: "We are all over-testing when we could be sharing information."
The event was summed up best by Rick Horwitch, vice-president of global retail lead and supply chain strategy at Bureau Veritas: "The only thing that touches everyone is clothing and water: have a resource that we need for life, this is a problem we need to address. Planet Textiles has focused on practicalities and solutions. I do not believe the answer is to test our way to a solution, it is about being smart and sharing that information. The challenge is that we need to think and do things differently. Creating an impact, that is what we need to do."
