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Ethiopia is developing 10bmega industrial parks in different regions of the country. These industrial parks will see investments by global and Ethiopian companies in industries like textiles and apparels, industrial machinery, pharmaceuticals, footwear, and food and beverages. To reduce or eliminate any possible negative impacts on environmental and social sustainability as result of this industrialization drive, Ethiopia has decided to use the cleanest effluent treatment technology – zero liquid discharge technology– at these mega industrial parks. This technology ensures that the industrial parks use the minimum amount of ground water and have a zero liquid discharge outside the park.
Arvind Envisol, a subsidiary of Arvind, will provide water treatment technologies at these parks. It has already set up a zero liquid discharge water treatment plant at an industrial park. This plant has a capacity of treating 11 million liters of waste water a day and is one of the largest such plants in Africa.
Arvind Envisol provides end-to-end solutions for water treatment, industrial waste water treatment and sewage treatment. It is also working with Ethiopian universities to develop curriculum on environmental sustainability and technology transfer.
Ethiopia and Arvind will conduct a study on environmental sustainability in the textile and garmenting sector in Ethiopia. This study will establish the baseline on various sustainability studies and outline the future environmental impacts of the rapid industrialization drive of Ethiopia.
The denim jeans market the world over is primarily driven by rapid evolution of demand for branded as well as unbranded jeans among men and women, especially in metros and mega-metros. Rising disposable incomes in urban and semi-urban areas, coupled with fast changing buying patterns for casual wear, is a crucial factor boosting the denim jeans market
The growing number of women in the workforce has led to a new target consumer, thereby opening up exciting opportunities. The growing prominence of jeans as executive wear among men is a crucial factor catalyzing the market.
Recent advances have led to the launch of denim jeans with eco-friendly fabrics and sophisticated weaving patterns. In addition, the soaring popularity of blue denim jeans as staple casual wear is expected to fuel the growth of denim jeans market in key regions.
Growing environmental awareness among consumers has led to the demand for jeans made with organic raw materials. This is expected to unlock new opportunities for market players in the forthcoming years.
Novel blends of fiber and digitally printed designs are expected to attract more consumers in developing regions. In addition, the emerging fashion fad among the youth population is feeding the demand for denim jeans with premium pricing, thereby favorably impacting the market.
The denim jeans market the world over is primarily driven by the rapid evolution of demand for branded as well as unbranded jeans among men and women, especially in metro and mega-metro cities.
The rising disposable incomes of people in urban and semi-urban areas, coupled with fast changing buying patterns for casual wear, is a crucial factor boosting the denim jeans market.
The growing number of women in the workforce has led to a new target consumer, thereby opening up exciting opportunities in the denim jeans market. The growing prominence of jeans as executive wear among men is a crucial factor catalyzing the market.
Recent advances have led to the launch of denim jeans with eco-friendly fabrics and sophisticated weaving patterns. In addition, the soaring popularity of blue denim jeans as staple casual wear is expected to fuel the growth of denim jeans market in key regions.
Growing environmental awareness among consumers has led to the demand for jeans made with organic raw materials. This is expected to unlock new opportunities for market players in the forthcoming years.
Novel blends of fiber and digitally printed designs are expected to attract more consumers in developing regions. In addition, the emerging fashion fad among the youth population is feeding the demand for denim jeans with premium pricing, thereby favorably impacting the market.
The land allotted to cotton cultivation in India has increased this year compared to 2016. Farmers who have basic irrigational access harvest about 12 to 15 quintals per acre, depending upon the availability of drip irrigation. Cotton is relatively harder than soybean, which can be washed off in heavy rainfall. It can also be picked four to five times despite rains and at least twice if the weather isn’t favorable.
Cotton is sowed after the second week of June, with the first harvest or picking taking place 120 days post sowing, in its 175 to 180 day span. Farmers generally have to bear the cost of picking which comes at Rs 6000 per acre. Pesticides like Confidor, Actara and Polo amount to Rs 4000 an acre, excluding the Rs 200 labor on each round of spraying the chemical. Other expenses include weeding, fertilizer, and seeding.
This year the best among the crop choices left for a farmer which yield better returns in the kharif season was cotton. Farmers require immediate compensation for picking the cotton and using pesticides. Traders themselves came to buy the kapas (raw unginned cotton) straight from farmers at Rs 5600 per quintal this February compared with Rs 4000 in the previous year.
Archroma, a global leader in color and specialty chemicals, will be the major sponsor for the SDC International Design Competition 2018 launched by SDC on June 20, 2017. SDC’s annual competition engages hundreds of students, universities and designers globally, helping entrants develop an understanding of color and the challenges around sustainability in the textile supply chain. The theme for 2018 is ‘color communication’.
Archroma will support the competition with its Color Atlas color management system, which will be key to both the competition theme and the accompanying educational package.
With a global textile supply chain, being able to communicate a given color through the supply chain efficiently and effectively is vital. Ultimately this provides the designer with the knowledge that their product is commercially suitable from the initial concept stages through to final product.
Using physical library, Mobile-friendly Color Atlas and Engineered Color Standards colors will provides the best opportunity to minimize the environmental impact during the dyeing/printing process by ensuring that the dyes conform too many of the environmental standards that exist and are applied using best practice.
Brad McClanahan, Global Head of Service Businesses at Archroma says participants will be able to experience first-hand how the Atlas can support their creativity. For Archroma, this is a great opportunity to further drive innovation and sustainability in the textile supply chain. The company is looking forward to seeing the Color Atlas translating into cool fashion pieces.
India wants to increase textile and apparel exports to Africa. India is presenting herself as a global sourcing hub and an investment destination showcasing the growth potential of technical textiles and carving a niche globally for handcrafted goods.
The country’s biggest market on the African continent is South Africa. South African chain store buyers, independent retailers, boutique owners, home textile and soft furnishing buyers, agents, wholesalers, importers and other industry professionals are interested in Indian products particularly fashion garments, embroidery, sequins, beadwork and the hand washes that India is famous for.
India has set up an apparel training centre in Nigeria. This will rebuild the cotton and textile value chain of Nigeria. In South Africa, India is recognised as one of the best sourcing destinations for garments, textiles, footwear and leather. India is the largest producer of jute, the second largest producer of cotton, silk and cellulosic fiber, the third largest producer of raw cotton and the fourth largest producer of synthetic fiber.
There is growing investment by Indian companies in Africa on a range of sectors such as telecommunications, hydrocarbons, agriculture, manufacturing, IT, water treatment and supply, drugs and pharmaceuticals, coal, automobiles, floriculture and textiles.
"The fashion industry has increasingly relied on forests to create alternative fabrics such as viscose, modal, lyocell and other trademarked textiles. Healthy forest ecosystems are essential for mitigating climate change, as well as maintaining species diversity and freshwater systems. Progressing conservation solutions that benefit local communities, species, the world’s climate and intact forests are drivers behind the work of Canopy and the Rainforest Alliance with Aditya Birla."
The fashion industry has increasingly relied on forests to create alternative fabrics such as viscose, modal, lyocell and other trademarked textiles. Healthy forest ecosystems are essential for mitigating climate change, as well as maintaining species diversity and freshwater systems. Progressing conservation solutions that benefit local communities, species, the world’s climate and intact forests are drivers behind the work of Canopy and the Rainforest Alliance with Aditya Birla. The CanopyStyle Audit is a requirement for the 100 brands and retailers — including Zara, H&M, Stella McCartney and VF Corp — who make up CanopyStyle and a key performance indicator of Canopy’s overall assessment of viscose producers’ progress on their CanopyStyle commitments.
Audit findings contribute to CanopyStyle’s Hot Button Issue Report, which assesses viscose producers’ overall performance on forest conservation, advancements on developing fabrics made from recycled fabrics and alternative fibres, and sourcing transparency. To further improve sustainability of its operations, Birla Cellulose will continue to advance research and development on new technologies of recycled and alternative fibres, as well as ensure that its company-owned mills and wood suppliers continue to maintain their own independent third-party certification systems. The company also intends to build on its existing chain of custody systems and certified material sources.
Burberry initiative
Meanwhile the Burberry Foundation has awarded £3 million to the Royal College of Art in London to drive sustainable textile research. The grant will see the establishment of the Burberry Material Futures Research Group and expand the Burberry Design Scholarship Fund, a move that aligns with Burberry’s new five-year responsibility agenda. The Group will be the first explicit ‘steam’ research center at a traditional art and design university, applying radical thinking to invent more sustainable materials, transform consumer experience and advance manufacturing for the benefit of industry and the wider community. It will operate as a virtual hub and move to a physical space following the completion of RCA’s new building in Battersea in 2020.
Burberry’s CEO and chief creative Christopher Bailey, says the Group will cover a broad scope of work, including the development of sustainable materials and new manufacturing methods, as well as support British-trained design talent. The Group looks to take a long-term approach to promoting the ‘steam’ agenda, tackling educational inequality, reducing waste and supporting social and economic development. It will be led by the Burberry Chair of Material Futures, who will also be the academic lead of the Material Science Research Center and the first industry-named Chair post at the College. The £3 million grant also includes £750,000 to expand the existing Burberry Design Scholarship at the Royal College of Art (RCA).
The initiative is in line with Burberry’s new responsibility agenda, which will focus on three ambitious goals over the next five years: to support one million people in the communities that sustain Burberry’s business and the wider luxury industry; to ensure 100 per cent of Burberry’s products have at least one element that drives positive change; and to create new approaches on how to revalue waste from luxury good production in order to become carbon neutral in its own operations.
With such an audit in place, a significant result has come to fore that approximately 25 per cent of the global supply chain for viscose has now been audited and found to be low-risk in terms of containing fibres sourced from endangered or ancient forests, providing CanopyStyle partner brands with considerably more information on where their viscose and rayon fabrics come from.
Vietnam’s earnings from garment and textile exports in the first quarter of this year were 11.2 per cent higher than in the same period last year. The textile and garment industry has been improving and catering to the requirements of global value chains. Productivity has improved thanks to the renovation of machines and equipment and the closure of factories with outdated technologies and those that consume a lot of power. Enterprises are being repositioned. Units are using few workers and high-productivity machines. The product structure has been adjusted to choose enterprises with higher added value.
The weakness of the textile industry is lack of input materials. If Vietnamese enterprises make input materials, their products would be able to replace Chinese products and can compete with Chinese products in price. In current conditions, however, it is easier and faster to seek input materials from China than domestic sources. This is because China organizes large-scale production and always has large stocks, while Vietnam only makes products to order.
Vietnam’s textile and apparel sector has set a target of seven per cent growth over 2016. Currently, Vietnamese garment and textile products are available in 40 countries and territories around the world, with major markets including the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, China and the EU.
A group of Vietnamese textile suppliers to VF Corp and Target Corporation have achieved $15 million savings in water, energy and chemical operating costs over the past 18 months. There are 28 such suppliers, with cut-and-sew, dyeing-and-printing, and garment-washing operations. They collectively invested $9.9 million in resource efficiency measures, achieving a significant return in the process. The suppliers implemented a combination of low cost and more complex factory projects, achieving average water and energy savings of more than 20 per cent, with the highest-achieving factories attaining more than double these average savings.
VF has been working on its supplier improvement program for nearly four years. Target actively works with its suppliers to develop programs that reduce the water and energy use across the supply chain. Vietnam’s textile and apparel sector has set a target of seven per cent growth over 2016.
Currently, Vietnamese garment and textile products are available in 40 countries and territories around the world, with major markets including the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, China and the EU.
Vietnam is one of the five largest textile and garment exporters in the world. However, the country is also one of the world’s leading importers of fabrics and materials. The shortage of high-quality materials for production is the biggest barrier to Vietnam’s textile and garment industry, hindering the country from taking advantage of free trade agreements.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR), in consultation with the Trade Policy Staff Committee (TPSC), has announced the initiation of an out-of-cycle review of the eligibility of the Republic of Rwanda, United Republic of Tanzania, and Republic of Uganda to receive benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) in response to a petition.
The AGOA Subcommittee of the TPSC (Subcommittee) will consider written comments, written testimony, and oral testimony in response to this notice to develop recommendations for the President as to whether Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda are meeting the AGOA eligibility criteria.
Signed into law in 2000, AGOA promotes trade and investment in sub-Saharan Africa, including through substantial trade preferences. In order to qualify for AGOA trade benefits, partner countries must meet certain statutory eligibility requirements, including making continual progress toward establishing market-based economies, the rule of law, political pluralism, and elimination of barriers to US trade and investment, among others.
US AGOA imports from Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda totalled $43 million in 2016, up from $33 million in 2015. US exports to Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda totalled $281 million in 2016, up from $257 million in 2015.
