"In reality sustainability is an investment, and if you invest, you end up with more"

This year's conference, co-hosted by GIZ FABRIC and the Cambodian Producers Association (GMAC), was held in Siem Reap, Cambodia, on August 17, 2022, and welcomed an international audience of brands, manufacturers, textile industry professionals, civil society and government bodies in person. For the first time, it was organized as a hybrid event which enabled participants and speakers from more than 20 countries to exchange during the Asian Dialogues focusing on the topic of “Greener Production”.


In case you missed the conference, here are the most important statements and key findings from the four sessions on "Powering Production with Solar", "Financing Greener Production", "Recycling Pre-Consumer Textile Waste" and "The Value of Environmental Data". Find the recordings of the sessions under Related Items or in our Resources section.


Powering Production with Solar

Zuen Zeng, TotalEnergies
“We offer solar solutions for a long-term commitment to fight climate change, and they [manufacturers] can also reduce their electricity bills, which is a win-win situation. The first barrier we face is a roof structure, because often the buildings are old and weak and cannot support the panel to be installed. The second barrier is the term of the lease, because most factories don't have a loan, they sign a lease. However, at TotalEnergies, we aim for a long-term lease because the longer the payback period, the cheaper the electricity bill. But if that's not possible, we're also willing to sign a shorter lease that matches their lease. The last point is more challenging: we need to make sure we comply with all government regulations. For most factories, that can be a challenge because they need to know how much energy they are using and when.”

Robert Hwang, Manufacturer S.E.C. Accessories Ltd. / P P S E C Co. Ltd. 
“We produce for many brands like Nike, Adidas, Lululemon, Lacoste, so all buyers are very interested in using renewable energy and reducing CO2. We use rainwater, we try to use the hot air from the air conditioning, but the most important thing is that 85% of our energy comes from solar energy.”

Butchaiah Gadde, UNDP
“The overall cost of electricity from solar has come down significantly over the last decade. In the case of utility-scale the cost reduction was around 85% between 2010 and 2020. Whereas in the case of rooftop, it is around 65% with battery energy storage.  There is a shift in policies landscape across ASEAN countries. This shift is seen across all the end-use sectors just not limiting to garment/textile and apparel industry alone."

Natharoun Ngo Son, EnergyLab  
“We are very supportive to clean and renewable energy and solar rooftop is an important topic. The changes that we would like to see in Cambodia is that there are more benefits to everyone. Another option is to feed the surplus electricity into the grid - that should be looked into. There is also a limit on the capacity of the panels, which is 50% of the connection fee. Solar PPAs, which are not subsidized today, would also be a possible starting point. It's also important to say that the energy regulators have a very good handle on their capacity, and that's an advantage for Cambodia."

Financing greener production

Hasso Anwer, Project Manager, GIZ FABRIC Cambodia
"It was great to discuss financing options for green investment in garment factories with our knowledgeable experts. While we identified strong disincentives for such investments in some countries, we also learned that there are ample financing options in other countries and globally – ranging from specialized development bank credit lines to direct funding from Brands and industry organisations, such as the Green Fashion Fund of the Apparel Impact Institute."

Peter Ford, Green Investment Programme Specialist, H&M Group
"It was great to be part of discussions on financially supporting decarbonisation of garment production. It’s a new area for most brands, and its exciting to be able to present H&M Group’s Green Fashion Initiative (GFI) as an example for others to be inspired by. There were lots of great questions around the topic, and hopefully this marks the beginning of the garment sector’s rapid phase out of coal and other fossil fuels.”


Phuong Tran Thi Minh, Senior Manager - Employee Relations & Sustainability, Crystal Martin 
"Three years ago, government-backed green loan programs were not very popular in Vietnam. So we used capital investment for the rooftop solar projects. The return looks positive because it takes about 6 to 7 years to pay back the investment, and the warranty period for the solar panels is 25 years. So we see that there is great potential for us to go green, especially thanks to the support of long-standing brands like H&M. The Vietnamese government is now more open to green manufacturing because of the pressure and the move to net-zero emissions in 2050."

John Leung, Director, Southeast Asia & Oceania, CDP
"It's been controversial scoring someones climate action plans, but it's really just a marker. When companies disclose their data to us - and we have over 3,000 companies disclosing their data to us - we grade them from D- to A. That's what it's all about. It's about creating awareness - you can't manage what you can't measure. We get them on the path to becoming self-aware of where they are on their climate change journey, and if they get an A grade, which H&M does, then it's about showing leadership. That score is used by various financial institutions to assess their potential investments, and you can link that to sustainable efforts and incentivize companies to move up their scale to B and eventually A to motivate these companies to be more climate friendly."

Shafqat Ullah, General Manager, NEC Consultants, Pakistan
“If we talk about green energy, especially solar power plants, there are different financing options in Pakistan. One option is for solar companies and private investors. Under this arrangement, the solar companies get financing from the commercial bank, and that financing is about $9 million for a plant that can be up to 5 megawatts in size. The solar company receives the loan, which it pays back to the bank for 10 years. The solar company installs the solar system at the client's site. It designs, procures, operates, and maintains the solar system and enters into a power purchase agreement with the client, under which the client only has to pay for the energy it generates and consumes. This is a win-win situation for the client, who doesn't have to invest anything."


Recycling Pre-Consumer Textile Waste

Vidiya Amrit Khan, BGMEA
"We don't have a government policy that encourages factories to recycle their products or recycle the waste. The biggest asset that we have right now is knowledge. Because, of course, we can recycle everything. We deal with about $170 million worth of waste every year. If we could recycle our cotton waste that is generated in Bangladesh, we would save exporting $500 million worth of new cotton to our industry. These are numbers that the manufacturers in the industry are not aware of and therefore not working towards. Of course, I think Bangladesh is very progressive and transparent, and I think we are one of the most sustainable industries in our region right now in terms of garment production. So I think once the knowledge is there and some government policies are changed, which of course is partly the job of the BGMEA, a lot will change in the future."

Harshitha Venati, Programme Manager, Reverse Resources
"It was very encouraging that the conference had a session dedicated to pre-consumer textile waste recycling thereby acknowledging that this topic in fact falls within the purview of "green production". The session highlighted the need and the challenges of recycling textile waste streams and that the Asian apparel manufacturing hubs are still in early stages of prioritizing and facilitating textile to textile recycling. Globally as well, textile to textile recycling capabilities need to be significantly ramped up. It is important for all relevant stakeholders to identify the business opportunities within this space and bring it to the foreground such that adequate funding and governmental support can be channelled to this aspect of "green production."

Edwin Keh, HKRITA
"One of the challenges of recycling is that currently not only polyester and other raw materials are the fastest growing, but most of the garments we use today are made from mixed materials. Until we are able to separate the individual materials, it is very difficult to put them into a high-quality secondary recycling. So at the Research Institute, we are working on several things related to recycling. We are working on traditional mechanical and chemical recycling improvement, we are working on biological recycling, but we have also recently introduced and scaled up the hydrothermal system for fiber-to-fiber separation and recycling. The idea is to create a very short recycling path so that it's cost effective to harvest the highest quality materials possible for reuse, to keep the quality of the material as good as possible so that it works as well as it did in its original form. And to make that feasible and accessible to manufacturers so that it's a competitive advantage for them or a business advantage for their business."


The Value of Environmental Data

Jessie Li, Co-Founder Manufactured podcast/Consultant
"Companies have set ambitious environmental targets and meanwhile stakeholders and the public want to know are those environmental targets achievable and beneficial especially for producers? Are we really meeting those targets? And to answer this question we need data. Collecting data should be the beginning point of any environmental strategy, not the end point. What kind of data should companies collect? Which form to report? Which value is in data? How can we use partnership of different business to help collect data and report in a way to help design producting?"

Laureen van Breen, Managing Director WikiRate / EFRAG Advisory board
"The question of what value environmental data has and why it is worth collecting it brings me back to the question of what sustainability is actually about. Behind it is the idea that companies no longer just create value for shareholders or company owners in the form of financial profits. Rather, it is about creating value for society: Are we having a positive impact on the environment, on local communities, are we making the world a better place? If we want to achieve that, we need to involve more groups than shareholders and companies. We need to involve civil society, workers' rights groups, local communities, and consumers, and they need to understand what's happening, what the impact of companies is. From our perspective, it's about bringing all these groups and perspectives together. It's not about companies being named and shamed, but rather what information do others have that helps me. What we see in the public today is mostly environmental data, policies, commitments and targets, but there's very little evidence that we're going in the right direction - that's an important piece that's missing."

Saqib Shahzad, Head of Sustainability, Sapphire Diamonds Fabrics Limited
"The challenge is that you have to change the mindset of the production team. You have to make them understand that this is something really important when you're working with the global market. If you don't adhere to these things in the future, you won't be able to produce a sustainable product. If you want to compete in the global market, you have to choose sustainable products. The first initiative we took is to give management confidence that we can reduce costs, carbon emissions and water consumption if we produce in this way. We need to collect the challenges we face during the production process, but to do that we first need to understand the production process. In all production processes, data must be collected in real time. What chemicals are used? How much water are you using? That's information you need - there are different tools for that, and the challenge is that you have to finance yourself. If a company thinks sustainability is expensive, it will be a disaster. In reality, sustainability is an investment, and if you invest, you end up with more."

Margreet Vrieling, The Industry We Want / Fairwear Foundation
"In the end, it's not about the data, it's about the impact. This industry is characterized by its fragmentation, multiple relationships, a web of connections, brands that have multiple suppliers, suppliers that have multiple customers, and all the stakeholders that surround them. This contributes to an unequal balance of power that prevents us from taking further steps. Problems are shifted throughout the supply chain, and in the end, no one has any impact. We need to make sure we are ready to make that collective effort where everyone takes their own responsibility within the supply chain. Information and data are also very important so that everyone in the supply chain can take their responsibility in terms of human rights and environmental due diligence. To conduct due diligence, you need information that allows you to be aware of the types of risks associated with your supply chain activities, so the data must be actionable. You need to provide sufficient information about the nature of the risks. We need to align and harmonize. We need a common understanding of what the data means, what we're measuring, and what we're informing in order to understand what kind of impact we want to show."

Joyce Tsoi, Director of Collective Action Programs, Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC)
"The Higg index demonstrates how data can drive action. Driving positive impact is our common purpose. The SAC has launched the HIGG facility environmental module to help each facility to measure seven impact areas. When measuring chemical use and water use, it is important to have accurate data on your performance so you can try to improve your baseline. Standardization of data and questions is very important to the way we collect the data and also analyze it consistently, using the same verifiable and accurate data to drive decision making."

Sittisak Sugsaisakon, Sr. Energy Advisor, Sustainable Manufacturing Alliance (MSMA)
"It's a big challenge for the factories on the ground. There are a lot of measurements on environmental issues. Greenhouse gas emissions are a big challenge. Some things, like the quality of wastewater or boilers, you can measure, but with greenhouse gas emissions, you can't, and that's a big challenge for companies, especially in regions like Cambodia and Vietnam. There is a lack of human resources who understand what greenhouse gas emissions are, how to calculate them, and exactly what their impact is. We see a gap here, and our program supports training on greenhouse gas emissions data collection."

About the “Asian Dialogues on Sustainability in the Textile and Garment Industry”
The “Asian Dialogues on Sustainability in the Textile and Garment Industry” series was established by GIZ FABRIC and the STAR network in order to foster collaboration and strengthen regional knowledge exchange for greater social, environmental and economic sustainability in the sector. Launched in 2015, the series brings together industry enthusiasts and representatives – from brands, suppliers, workers, civil society, and government bodies from Asia to cultivate regional, sector-specific dialogue.