Big Brands Should Respond Positively To Green Supply Chain

During the production of textile, dyeing, washing, printing and finishing process will produce a lot of sewage containing toxic and harmful substances. If not treated, these toxic and harmful substances will eventually be discharged into rivers, lakes and sea with sewage.

Some people call it the price of fashion. Can the pain of pollution behind these beauties be minimized?

Can they be friendly to the environment?

In October 8th, 5 environmental organizations, including friends of nature, public environment research center, Dahl asked, ring friend technology and Nanjing green stone, jointly released the Research Report on "cleaning for fashion - green choice textile brand supply chain pollution".

Feedback on the supply chain management of large textile brands and apparel retailers exposed in China was released in April 9th this year.

Phase II reports show that H&M, NIKE, Yida, Levi's, Adidas, WAL-MART, Burberry, GAP and other brands have actively followed up, and through their regular search mechanism, actively identify pollution records in the supply chain, and promote more than 200 textile and leather suppliers enterprises to make a public statement on violations and subsequent rectification.

Among them, Adidas, NIKE, Levi's and H&M have begun to extend their management to dyeing and finishing suppliers.

However, in the face of specific questions raised by environmental protection organizations over the violation of the supply chain's regulations, 22 brands such as Martha, Disney, J.C.Penny, PoloRalph Lauren and TommyHilfiger have made another choice. They either respond negatively or refuse to reply.

Printing and dyeing finishing has become a blind spot for sustainable textiles in the case of water consumption, high energy consumption and high concentration of pollutants discharged into China.

Recently, Mr. Gu, who was on a business trip to the United States, bought many gifts for his family in a large shopping mall abroad. He thought he had made a pile of "made in China" which was cheaper than that in China. I did not expect to come back to see it carefully and found that most of them were produced in Vietnam or Bangladesh.

Under the pressure of continuous appreciation of RMB, rising cost of raw materials, shortage of labor and international trade barriers, China has no advantage in garment processing and labor-intensive industries. Large international brands and retailers are starting to pfer their orders from China.

Does this mean that China is no longer a world factory of textile industry? In the survey, environmental protection organizations found that the decline in textile export share was mainly concentrated in the process of garment making, while China still occupies the most important position in the textile and raw materials processing process mainly in dyeing and finishing. Some new garment processing centers, such as Vietnam, Bangladesh and India, imported large quantities of raw materials from China.

"From an economic point of view, China seems to have some gains and losses in the new round of global industrial division. However, from the environmental and social point of view, such a re division of labor is worrying."

Ma Jun, director of the public environment research center, said that what China lost was labor intensive clothing processing. This link could create a large number of jobs, and water consumption, energy consumption and pollutant emissions were few. However, what China got was capital intensive dyeing and finishing, which was difficult to bring in large numbers of jobs, and water consumption, energy consumption and pollutant emissions were very large.

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A survey shows that in the four main processes of printing and dyeing, fabric production, printing and dyeing and garment processing, water consumption accounts for 85%, energy consumption accounts for 80%, and chemical consumption accounts for 65%.

Compared with other links in textile production, dyeing and finishing is the most serious pollution problem, and there are serious environmental management blind spots.

Following the IT industry survey, the green choice Alliance launched by 41 environmental NGO initiatives such as friends of nature and public environmental research center put the perspective on the textile industry.

China

No shortage of capital and technology, lack of motivation, brand enterprises can become a powerful driving force for China's textile industry to solve pollution problems.

From the "Sudan red" incident in recent years to "lean meat essence" and "dyeing steamed bread" incident, they all involve well-known enterprises.

Despite the findings of the incident, most of the problems occurred in the upstream suppliers' links, but they did great harm to the brand of these enterprises. Similar events remind enterprises not only to pay attention to their social responsibilities, but also to pay attention to and control the social responsibility of the supply chain.

If the supplier has environmental violations, there will be obvious loopholes in the supply chain environment and social responsibility management of large textile brands and garment retailers.

Over the past year, private insurance organizations have found that the supply chain environment management of large brands still stays at the first level suppliers, that is, garment factories, while the environmental performance of the most heavily polluting materials suppliers is limited, and some even do not know who these suppliers are.

Qing Mao company produces a large amount of waste gas and sewage every day during the production process, which has an impact on the health of the surrounding residents.

Under the circumstances of residents' reflection, consumers are already aware of the supply chain when they cannot completely change the status quo.

The netizen "Shaoxing teacher" has written a letter to a brand enterprise, asking him to reduce orders for polluting suppliers. However, his efforts to reflect the situation have not been listed below.

"High walls stop everything, we can only investigate outside."

Zheng Yuanying, director of Wenzhou green eyes, conducted a preliminary investigation of suspected supplier Zhejiang Qing Mao, reluctantly.

While non-governmental environmental organizations are denouncing the pollution problems of suppliers of large textile brands and garment retailers in China, there are voices calling for these enterprises to complain.

Some people believe that the discharge of textile pollution wastewater is a problem that can not be solved in a short time. If the problem is not solved, the problem will be thrown to the public, which will directly kill some of the textile enterprises which are originally profitable.

Ma Jun said that the fight against China's textile enterprises is certainly not their original intention.

They believe that China's textile pollution problems are not lack of capital and technology, but lack of motivation.

They hope that this activity can become a powerful driving force for China's textile industry to solve the pollution problem.

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It is necessary for all parties to participate together and push together to form a kind of public opinion and give it a boost.

In the process of contacting with some enterprises, Ma Jun understands that these enterprises have the solutions to save water and reduce energy consumption on hand. Some brands buy proprietary technology, and they use very little water or even close to the petty water, but store them and use them when they are reasonable.

How much difference does it take to start using these technologies? This is a very interesting problem. Some large enterprises have talked with Ma Jun privately. If they are to be put into use, the cost will be much higher than that of the surrounding enterprises, and finally they will fail in the market, because the order will be pferred to the neighbors.

In China, the problem of environmental protection is very complicated and can hardly be solved by the efforts of one side.

Environmental protection departments have always been subject to local governments and are under the pressure of economic development. Sometimes, it is quite difficult to do so.

These large polluters are often the big profits and taxes, many are very difficult to move. After moving, there will be some consequences.

"A lot of pollution problems are not related to capital and technology.

This is precisely what we must bump into as a NGO organization, and we should create a driving force for them.

At present, some leading textile brands are forming their own alliances. This so-called Sustainable Textile Alliance is that dozens of brand enterprises come together to put forward some standards for their social and environmental impacts, and raise certain requirements for auditing.

But most of these standards are for products themselves, not for environmental problems at the front of the supply chain.

"If the waste water and waste gas in the front end process are discharged, it is misleading to tell consumers that they are zero waste and carbon neutral at the back end."

Ma Jun said.

"Such a good brand, good design and original spirit, but its supply chain is totally toxic, which is unacceptable to consumers," said Li Li, director of the technology. "For apple, for Martha, it is actually because of this problem that we are beating them, not to destroy them, but to make them really" green ".

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Multiple efforts to promote enterprise rectification

Kaida textile accepts third party audit

Kai Da synthetic textile (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Kaida textile) was invested and built by Malaysia resistance International Co., Ltd. in 2005, and has been supplied to Nike for a long time.

In April 22, 2011, the IPE (Public Environment Research Center) reported to local residents in Taicang that Kay university had "stolen the printing and dyeing wastewater and seriously polluted the surrounding environment".

Landing on the IPE website to check the environmental violation records of Kay Da textile, we can see that in September 21, 2009, Kaida broke the rules and secretly discharged the waste water directly into the river.

In 2010, Kay was rated "yellow" by the Taicang Environmental Protection Bureau.

In March 3, 2011, Kay had not yet handled the leakage of printing and dyeing wastewater and flowed into the river through a rainwater pipe.

IPE pferred resident complaints and corporate irregularities to Nike company, a client company of Kaida textile company.

On the same day, Nike replied that it would follow up the matter.

In the process of continuous communication, Nike has conducted two checks on Kay and confirmed the residents' reports on the spot.

Nike attaches great importance to the pollution behavior of Kaida textile and has made clear that it will promote Kaida textile reform.

In May 2011, Kaida textile agreed to accept the third party audit.

In June 2011, Nike commissioned the third party an (Guangzhou) Environmental Protection Technology Consultancy Limited (AECOM) to carry out wastewater management control audit for Kai da. Representatives of the friends of Shanghai group and IPE representatives participated in the supervision process.

According to the on-site document inspection and personnel interviews, the audit company found out the direct reason for the violation of the company, and the company also blocked the underground pipeline.

It is not willing to further improve whether or not there is enough capacity to treat production wastewater and whether the sludge discharged into the river can be cleaned up at last.

At the same time, non-governmental environmental protection organizations require enterprises to publish emissions data for two years and enterprises are reluctant to publish them.

In view of the lack of sewage treatment capacity of kayda textile, there are still loopholes. The company failed to pass the audit and lost the large order of Nike.

From an enterprise point of view, it is a pity that Nike's order is lost, but the East is not bright and the west is bright. It has other options.

Public information shows that Kay textile is also available for Puma (Puma), Anta (ANTA) and Disney (Disney).

So far, the non-governmental environmental protection organizations have not seen any promotion and explanation of the 3 enterprises' pollution problems.

Supplier has many pollution records.

Martha department's negative treatment of public supervision

A, a global benchmark for Sustainable Textile and retail operations, has announced that it has become the world's first large retailer to achieve carbon neutralization and can recycle one hundred percent of its waste in Marks&Spencer. Martha,

At the same time, Shwopping proposed a clothing exchange plan.

In a press release, Martha, chief executive of the department store, stated in a high profile that the business model of "cradle to cradle" was established.

"During our early exchanges with Martha department store, we found that this part of the supply chain is not what they consider. A lot of waste water, energy and chemicals are produced in this link. If they only follow the development of the supply chain, there will be a lot of work.

We believe that to really solve the problem, we need to do some work in garment printing and dyeing.

Ma Jun said.

In April 9th, environmental non-governmental organizations released several communications before and after the first phase of the report on "clean up for fashion". Martha responded negatively. "We will naturally take all the external agencies' communication about our suppliers seriously and check the various concerns that may be raised.

So these requirements may be solved. "

Unable to confirm whether the problem of "possible solution" in Martha's department store was really solved, the environmental protection organization decided to conduct further research on the new suspected supplier cases mentioned in the first phase report and subsequent discoveries, and found that, unlike what it claims, the contamination of the suppliers suspected of dyeing and finishing has seriously affected the local community and environment.

Hongkong Qingye group, one of the suspected suppliers of Martha's department store, has two production bases, namely Qingfeng company located in Zhejiang Hangzhou Xiaoshan and Qingmao company in Zhejiang Shaoxing.

On the IPE pollution map, two enterprises have pollution records.

This includes a large number of deaths from pollution pools, causing serious environmental impacts. Sewage is discharged through rainwater network, and emissions from production are unorganized.

The masses have petitions frequently, and the local environmental protection departments have ordered them to make rectification immediately.

Nearby residents have held three meetings with the environmental protection department and Qingfeng company, but the problem has not been solved.

Another suspected supplier, a number of enterprises under the jurisdiction of Zhejiang airlines, has a number of pollution records.

At the end of September 2012, the Wenzhou green eyes of the non-governmental environmental protection organization conducted a field investigation of Zhejiang hang min company.

Members of the environmental protection group smelt a particularly bad smell at the gate of the airline's printing and dyeing company.

The river opposite to the main entrance is seriously polluted. The river is dark green. It smells sour when approaching.