Where is the green transformation of the textile industry?

China National Textile and Apparel Council (hereinafter referred to as China Textile Federation) recently released the “2014-2015 Annual Report on Social Responsibility of China's Textile and Apparel Industry” in Beijing (hereinafter referred to as “Annual Report”). This is the tenth consecutive release of the textile industry since 2006. social responsibility Report.

In the first part of the “Annual Report” “Industry Macroeconomic Situation and Its Impact on Social Responsibility”, “environmental protection” was placed at the top priority, “energy saving and emission reduction”, “environmental policy”, “environmental performance” and “environmental information "Open" etc. become keywords. As water and emissions, the textile industry in the next 5 years, 10 years or even longer, where is the direction of green transformation and how should it be achieved?

Accelerate the transition to the high end of the industry chain

Current focus on green manufacturing and end product quality

At the press conference, Wang Tiankai, president of China Textile Federation, stated that although the operating pressure faced by the textile industry has increased this year, it has always insisted on accelerating structural adjustment and industrial upgrading. He pointed out: "In the new era, the textile industry must take on new challenges and face a new decade. The textile and apparel industry should focus on promoting sustainable industrial development, strengthen green cleaner production, promote green transformation in traditional production fields, and promote the establishment of green and low-carbon recycling development. The industrial system has comprehensively strengthened the support of green science and technology and accelerated the construction of industrial structures and production methods with high technological content, low resource consumption, and low environmental pollution.”

According to the work arrangement of China Textile Federation, the next step will be to further improve the cleaning system, improve related standards and performance evaluation, and design the “13th Five-Year Plan” energy-saving emission reduction and promotion roadmap to promote the green manufacturing of enterprises to develop green products and promote ecological design. Improve product effectiveness and low carbon level, and guide green production.

"The transition to high-end is an important task for the textile industry during the 13th Five-Year Plan period," said Cao Xuejun, Director of the Textile Division of the Consumer Products Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. This year is the first year of implementation of the new environmental protection law, and it is proposed for economic development and green development. More demanding. Under the current situation, the focus of social responsibility construction in the textile industry should be the quality of the industry's green manufacturing and end products.

Create Supply Chain Collaboration

Supply chain risk is the main risk facing the industry

In the same period of the press conference, the China Textile Federation’s Social Responsibility Office also formally established the “Green Supply Industry Innovation Alliance for Textile Supply Chains” in cooperation with the ZDHC (Zero Discharge Contracting Agency of Harmful Chemical Substances) and 48 industry-leading companies.

According to Sun Ruizhe, Vice Chairman of China Textile Federation, the establishment of the alliance aims to form a cross-supply chain collaboration mechanism focusing on the chemical industry, the textile printing and dyeing industry, other related companies, and downstream brand companies to jointly explore green manufacturing policies in the textile industry. Routes, cooperation to promote green manufacturing, help green development.

It is understood that ZDHC is an international organization jointly initiated by 20 international brands such as Adidas and Nike.

According to Ren Wenwei, director of the Yangtze River project of the world's natural opportunities, in the past, single companies were very weak in promoting energy conservation, emission reduction and industrial upgrading. Through the establishment of a coalition mechanism, more social resources could be introduced to promote sustainable development of the industry. development of.

Ren Wenwei said that supply chain risk is currently a major risk faced by the textile industry. “As the environmental awareness of the public improves, the environmental protection issues in the textile industry are getting more and more attention. Problems in any link in the supply chain will have a huge impact on the brand.”

He gave an example to explain that many global brand companies are forced to cooperate with international organizations to promote the transformation of the entire industry supply chain because of the risk from suppliers. At present, H&M, a well-known apparel company, is working with the World Association for Nature to promote water management innovation throughout the supply chain.

Establish chemical traceability system

Do not cooperate with polluting companies and strictly control chemicals

Hu Kehua, director of the China Textile Federation's Social Responsibility Office, told reporters that although China has not officially joined the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement), the greening of international trade rules will be the future trend.

“If you want to prove that you are a good person, you should not have a bad partner. This requires that you cannot cooperate with polluting companies on the supply chain. Companies must also have traceability throughout the process.” He believes that the green supply chain The essence of this is green manufacturing, and the foundation of green manufacturing is chemical control. At present, the textile industry accounts for about one-fourth of the global chemical use, while China's use of textile chemicals in the world accounts for about 45%. The astonishing volume determines that it is imperative to establish a set of chemicals that can effectively identify the supply chain. Status traceability system to enhance the management capabilities of the company's chemicals.

“The vast majority of environmental information on the market today comes from government data. From the perspective of government departments, the direction of future market-oriented reforms is how to allow companies to voluntarily disclose more environmental information,” said Hu Kehua.

In 2015, China Textile and ZDHC jointly developed the "Supply Chain Chemicals Improvement Information Exchange System" to provide an information platform for the chemical footprint traceability mechanism and management and control solutions for the textile supply chain, helping upstream and downstream enterprises in the textile supply chain to identify alternatives. And improve the use of hazardous chemicals.

“In the past, the use of chemicals was actually in a black box. No one knew what was imported or exported. Therefore, we proposed to increase the transparency of information in chemical products in the supply chain in order to find out the amount and type of chemicals used in the entire Sources, whereabouts and other issues.” Hu Kehua revealed that the system has now initially made its first version. In the future, it will include pollution emissions, transfer registration, and traceability including traceability of carbon footprints and traceability of water footprints.

“This will not only boost the big data of industry performance and help the continuous improvement of the supply chain, but will also create a multi-stakeholder management and communication platform for the company based on Internet technology.” Sun Ruizhe pointed out that 10 years ago, the textile industry took the lead in the country. We started to try industrial public governance, and in the next 10 years, the work of the association will be fully transferred from the offline to the online, from the devotion to the construction of standards to the construction of a multi-party governance platform, to promote the industry to accelerate to the high-end of the industrial chain, to achieve transparency, and Trace the innovative green sustainable growth.

Hu Kehua said frankly that for the current stage, although the promotion of the system has certain operational difficulties, it has been adjusted in the joint upstream and downstream enterprises. With the support of dyestuff associations and other organizations, about 20 chemical companies have joined in.