Green, clean, energy-saving production is urgent to improve competitiveness of Vietnam’s garment-textile enterprises as each year the sector spends up to $3 bn on production energy, heard a workshop in Ho Chi Minh City recently.
Vu Duc Giang, Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association, said Vietnam’s garments-textiles are under the pressure of price, production cost, environmental safety and labourers’ health. Commitments to corporate social responsibility have been also mentioned in articles of free trade agreements to which Vietnam is a signatory, he stressed.
Joerg Bauersachs, General Director of Tal Apparel Limited’s dyeing factory, said since 2009, his factory has applied energy-saving solutions, helping cut 26 per cent of emissions and 36 per cent of water used in production. Nguyen Thanh Ha, a representative of the State Administration for comprehensive growth project of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), said the problem lies with how to reduce emissions and waste water.
He also underlined the need for enterprises to revamp their production processes towards international standards for emissions, waste and waste administration. The USADI has partnered with the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) to improve garment-textile firms’ energy-saving capacity, while helping them access loans to carry out energy-saving projects, he said. According to Hoang Van Tam from the MoIT said an alliance of sustainable garment-textile firms is expected to officially make its debut in Vietnam in June 2018, assisting the businesses in improving production environment and cutting pollutants.
