Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA), the largest spinning mills association in the country, has appealed to the new government to release the remaining Rs 9,000-crore subsidies under Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS). According to P Nataraj, Chairman, SIMA, during the last two decades SIMA has attracted over Rs 3.75 lakh crore of investments in the textile industry besides creating jobs of over 10 million and enabling the Indian textile industry to become globally competitive and increase its exports by manifolds.

The scheme was effective and industry-friendly till 2007 when it was open-ended and later many complications were brought in the guidelines which got further complicated at every stage. This has resulted in a backlog of Rs`9,000 crore of TUF subsidies, severely affecting the financial conditions of the new investors. It has stalled the potential growth, job creation and forex earnings opportunities of the nation.

Releasing the pending TUF subsidies on a fast track basis would help the industry to create jobs for lakhs of people immediately. Resolving the TUFS issues would bring huge investments across the country thus creating jobs for millions of people and boost exports. Special export garment package and enhanced RoSTCL benefits would yield the desired results only when the TUFS issues are resolved

Tex Next will be held in Madurai, July 18 to 21, 2019. This is a textile expo. Among the exhibits are machinery for spinning preparation, manmade fiber production, spinning, winding, texturing, twisting, auxiliary machinery and accessories, machinery for web formation, bonding and finishing of nonwovens and felting and machinery related to technical textiles and accessories. Tex Next will present business opportunities showcasing products and capabilities for business enhancement, launching new products, creating brand awareness, enhancing corporate image, finding new applications and solutions, sourcing the latest in products and technologies, business meetings and networking opportunities and exposure to infrastructure availability. Among the visitors expected are business leaders and entrepreneurs, decision makers, product development executives, managers, investors and venture capitalists, distributors and dealers, and consultants.

Madurai, a marketing hub for southern Tamil Nadu, has witnessed a steady growth in power loom weaving, readymade garments and value added textile products. Handloom units have developed their product range and entered the export market.

Tex Next will be organized by the Madurai District Tiny and Small Scale Industries Association, which has played a proactive role in developing small scale industries in southern Tamil Nadu. The group has organized many exhibitions in various sectors to enhance industrial development in this region.

Environmental campaign group Greenpeace will use best third party tools and standards – and in particular Oeko-Tex criteria – to test the newly-prescribed amalgamation of existing industry standards to verify the ethical, non-hazardous production of textiles for its range of t-shirts, bags and other merchandise.inform this new procurance guidance for vendors.

The verification of its products’ environmental credentials is paramount for Greenpeace. This is due in no small part to the fact that a year after launching its flagship Detox My Fashion campaign in 2011 the group was left red-faced when it emerged that the very textile chemicals it was campaigning to abolish were found in its own promotional t-shirts and headwear.

France will prevent brands and online retailers from destroying unsold or returned consumer products like clothes, electrical items, hygiene products and cosmetics.

The measure would make it compulsory to hand in the products for re-use or recycling. However, products which are not usable after a certain date would have exceptions. Legislation would be enacted to that end. Kering-- the parent company of luxury brands such as Gucci, Saint Laurent and Balenciaga – has been asked to lead a global movement in order to reduce the environmental footprint that the fashion industry produces. British fashion firm Burberry last year burnt unsold clothes, accessories and perfume worth millions of dollars to prevent them being sold off cheaply. The aim was to maintain the exclusivity and luxury mystique of the brand.

Later it became clear that the practice is relatively commonplace in the industry. Many fashion companies burn items that don’t sell after discounts or they bury them in landfills. More than 500 billion dollars is lost globally every year due to clothing underutilisation and the lack of recycling. The overall benefit to the world economy could be about 192 billion dollars in 2030 if the fashion industry were to implement more sustainable measures.

Cotton On has been awarded for its sustainable cotton program in Kenya. The Responsible Retailer Initiative of the Year award honors retailers that demonstrate they are outstanding corporate citizens.

The program was launched in 2014 and aims at improving the livelihood of the Kwale community in Kenya by increasing agricultural productivity in the region and creating a pathway out of poverty. Cotton On aims at improving the livelihood of cotton farmers and helping reduce the impact of cotton farming on environments. Since its inception, the program has been the catalyst for major economic activity, employment and social development in the region, so much so Kenya plans to replicate the model nationally.

The program launched with only 15 farmers and today more than 2,500 farmers are engaged, with 10,000 farmers to be supported by 2020. Kenyan farmers have produced more than 700 tons of lint to be converted into approximately two million T-shirts, with 25 per cent to be sold through Cotton On. Beyond this initiative, the group has an ethical sourcing program, established in 2009, including 14 rules to trade which governs the sourcing, manufacturing and supply of products across its global supply chain. Cotton On is working toward the goal of 100 per cent supply chain traceability.

A Brandix factory in Sri Lanka is the world’s first apparel manufacturing facility to achieve Net Zero Carbon certification. This signifies the factory has completely neutralized its environmental impact through carbon dioxide emissions by being highly energy efficient and using on-site renewable energy resources. The Net Zero Carbon certification is issued by the Leonardo Academy, affiliated with the US Green Building Council, and comes in the background of countries around the world examining ways in which to minimise their contribution towards drastic climate change.

In 2007, Brandix began its journey in environmental sustainability and envisioned becoming the most sustainable apparel manufacturer in Asia. It is the first Sri Lankan company and apparel manufacturer to join in on the World Green Building Council Commitment. Brandix has also achieved the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum rating in Sri Lanka. Brandix’s next target is to ensure that all its factories located in Sri Lanka, under the company’s direct control, will be Net Zero Carbon by 2023. To achieve this ambitious goal, its decarbonisation strategy involves on-site renewable energy generation – with Brandix currently adding nearly 20MW of solar and biomass to its current energy mix-- and resource optimisation strategies with the installation of technologically advanced and energy efficient air compressors, sewing machines, lighting and building fabrics.

Key leaders from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark have collaborated to accelerate Circular Economy in the Nordic countries at the World Circular Economy Forum in Helsinki.

The coalition aims to establish a new platform to increase knowledge sharing about circular economy business models between the Nordic markets, while exploring the opportunities for specific circular economy projects in the Nordics. The coalition is modelled from the best practices from Holland Circular Hotspot. Stakeholders and actors interested in joining the coalition are encouraged to get in touch.

The coalition will align goals and targets for the circular economy in the Nordics, building on existing efforts from each market and experience from similar companies in different sectors. The coalition will invite governments, cities and regions, companies and knowledge institutions to collaborate closely to explore practical and scalable solutions, applicable for SMEs and core industry, as well as exploring necessary policy incentives.

Initiators of the coalition include Lifestyle and Design Cluster/National Circular Hub from Denmark; Cradlenet and RISE from Sweden; Business Finland from Finland and Circular Norway from Norway. Among other interested parties are Sitra, The Association of the Swedish Recycling Industries and Circular Sweden.

The coalition will help exchange ideas and focus on this important new way of doing business and address global common opportunities.

The apparel industry in the US continues to struggle amid sweeping changes. Many of the troubled retailers are located in malls, where fewer shoppers are spending their money. As sales decline, companies are still weighed down by large, expensive store bases even as retailers need to invest in technology to fend off competition from new brands born online. With consumers moving from one fashion trend to another faster than ever, US retailers are collectively being pushed to get away from the traditional model, which values low costs above all else.

As a group, apparel retailers’ first quarter results are down 24 per cent. The last time the group’s earnings were this bad was the first quarter of 2008, when they fell 40 per cent. Forever 21 is exploring restructuring options to shore up its liquidity. Forever 21 has more than 815 stores in the US and worldwide. The company is in talks with private equity firm Apollo Global Management about raising debtor-in-possession funds to provide financing should it file for bankruptcy.

Teen clothing retailers have found themselves particularly vulnerable to the retail upheaval. A number of them have filed for bankruptcy over the past few years, including Aeropostale and American Apparel.

An international quality certification program, the Social and Labor Convergence Program (SLCP), has been launched in Tirupur. There are many certifications and audits in the market. Each buyer has their own certification, which is really a problem for exporters as they have to spend a lot of money and time on them. SLCP will address alternate measures for all these issues. SLCP will eliminate multiple social audits. It eliminates the need to go to each buyer with various certifications. International buyers will have the information to compare facilities and decide with whom they would like to work with. 

SLCP uses a multi-stakeholder and inclusive organization and approach. Signatories include manufacturers, retailers and brands, agents and audit firms, service providers, as well as organizations in the public sector, standard holders, civil society organizations and multi-stakeholder organizations with an interest in converging assessments and improving labor and social conditions. SLCP will be accountable to signatories through an annual meeting. The International Trade Centre is also a part of SLCP.

This program will help the industry to eliminate audit fatigue, avoid duplication and reduce the number of social and labor audits by replacing current proprietary assessment tools, increase the opportunity for greater comparability of social and labor data and redeploy resources to improvement actions.

There is a lot going on in the field of textile recycling. The main raw material is textile production waste, which is easy for companies to collect. Cotton, wool and all synthetic fibers are thus recycled and at least partly mixed with new materials. Even recycled laminates and zippers are already on the market.

Down can also be recycled. This does not come from waste, but from the collection of old bedding. If it has not previously been possible to break fiber mixtures down into their starting materials in order to recycle them, there are also new solutions from the side. Numerous companies and laboratories around the world are working on the chemical separation of cotton and polyester. Polyester becomes polyester again and cotton cellulose powder, which can be used for cellulose fibers such as viscose. Work is also underway on new plastics that are easier to recycle.

Recycling of old clothes is still a problem because clothing consists of a mix of many materials and is seldom pure. In addition, finishing processes such as dyeing, impregnating and laminating change the fiber properties. Because no one knows exactly which fibers and chemicals are in old clothes, no new fibers can be made from them.