In today’s world, a major challenge in changing environmental conditions is due to various air & water pollutants. Globally, many environmental agencies are continuously working towards providing a solution to bring down the hazardous effects on our environment and to make earth’s environment safer for our generation next. As we all know, the second largest human need is fabric/garment after food, but unfortunately, the textile & garment industry requires difficult and at times harmful processes. It is also one of the largest industries requiring huge water resources, during the manufacturing of the garments.
Indian Government agencies have started taking serious steps towards curbing the same and the textile industry is surely realising the potential need to gear up together to make the earth greener, and saving our natural resources before it gets depleted. Garmon Chemicals, Italy, (Owned by Kemin Group, USA) are the leaders in the R&D for total dyes and chemical solutions for the apparel industry, and have been always focused to provide sustainable chemicals with green certification. The company, which is a responsible solution provider for the wet processing sector & garment finishing, jointly with its industry partners with common goal, Ravchem Specialties-India, Jeanologia-Spain, & Arvind Mills-India, organised a seminar titled Green of Change, bringing together people from the textile, garment, finishing, wet processing & washing sectors to discuss these ever-changing needs and solution.
This seminar was attended by owners, technical experts of washing, laundry units, owners of domestic brands of denim (jeans), garment manufacturers, renowned export houses, buying houses, industrial laundry processing units, etc. from Delhi NCR. Garmon, along with its partners, feel that greener technology can improve the “Wet Processing Industry,” once all the decision makers of this industry are imparted the knowledge of advantages of usage of such technology. For instance, to manufacture and finish one pair of denim jeans, as per the conventional method, requires 70 litres, of water. However, using technology by Jeanologia, Spain, can help to save immense water use to just a glass of water. Similarly, the technology of chemicals used by Garmon, does not allow discharge of any harmful effluent of treated garments/ denims to the environment – air & water, along with using minimum water consumption.
Green of Change seminar, which focused on sustainable technology, began with welcome address by Kimberly Nelson, General Manager for India, Kemin Industries South Asia Pvt. Ltd. This was followed by Presentation on Sustainable machinery and implementing EIM scores by Manuj Kanchan, Jeanologia; Presentation on green chemistry and how to motivate a connection between brands, chemical suppliers and manufacturers by Kimberly Nelson, Kemin Textile Auxiliaries; Presentation on designing and reading trends to create sustainable fashion by Robert Meeder, Professor of Fashion at SCAD Hong Kong. Later, Dr. Jitendra K Sharma, Consultant, Chemicals and Waste, UN Environment in India shared his views on the sustainability issues related to the Indian industries. Also Shikhar Jain, Principal Counsellor, CII-ITC Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development also spoke about India’s changing water pollution laws and how to stay ahead of regulations. At the end presentation of new Kemin designs from Italian technician, Manual Pecchiara was made.
This seminar had discussion on technology advantages and guidance by industrial expert from Jeanologia-Spain, Garmon-Italy, etc., motivating everyone to shift from conventional methods to more use of Sustainable Technology – Machinery and Chemicals, which contributes towards the Government’s Anti-Pollution Drive to Save our earth from hazardous elements release in the atmosphere and also Save Energy Usage, thus lowering the pollution level to make a better environment for India.
While speaking after the seminar Kimberly Nelson said, “The Green of Change, event promotes sustainable products and processes to transform the chemistry for textile industry. Garmon Chemicals promotes our Green of Change platform, the system dedicated to the improvement of environmental safety and performance of textile chemistry. As an innovative format that brought together textile industry stakeholders with the fashion community, Green of Change involves industry people, opinion leaders and technicians. They are, encouraged to share their expertise and bestpractices, opening up the discussion to each other which was once linear, not collaborative. The goal was to improve the knowledge related to sustainability and develop new strategies to enhance the entire industry.”
Speakers…
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- Kimberly Nelson, Kemin Industries South Asia
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- Manuj Kanchan, Jeanologia
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- Robert Meeder, SCAD Hong Kong
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- Shikhar Jain, CII-ITC Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development
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- Vijay Jhakmola, RavChem Specialities
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- Dr. Jitendra K Sharma, UN Environment
“A Green of Change process constitutes a concrete action to help the environment, an important response to the challenges of an industry that aims to be truly sustainable. With this platform Garmon offered a solid and innovative approach to the problem of sustainability in the fashion industry. To respect the Green of Change guidelines, garments must be treated with certified chemicals, through a finishing process based on the efficient use of resources,” said Kimberly.
According to Vijay Jhakmola, Director, RavChem Specialities Pvt. Ltd., “The seminar has been organised by Garmon basically looking into the sustainability part which is also emphasised by Green Environment. We thought that it is a good plan to call everyone from industry together alongwith government officials, and as well as other agencies who are taking take care of this kind of operation. Altogether, we thought the right time to call the brands, exporters, domestic guys, they can put their views, guide us as how can we go forward. Basically, the customers are from Delhi-NCR but we have also invited leading buying agencies like Impulse, VF, Target, Triburg etc. which are working all over India catering to markets worldwide.”
When asked about Garmon’s journey and its further plans for the India market Kimberly said, “Garmon historically has been the leader in the sustainable chemistry of our industry. In India there are two main areas – the export houses which require certifications for sustainability. The domestic market, the second area, doesn’t have these standards set yet, which is why we thought to introduce Green of Change in India’s largest domestic market, Delhi. It’s time for all of us industry people we need to be a little more proactive about sustainability. We need to have open conversations within the supply chain about this it does cost money to invest and there’s no way around it. But it’s a long-term investment not only for your companies, but for our world.”
“Right now because Garmon has a global approach, we have already held Green of Change events in China, Indonesia, Bangalore and Pakistan. Soon we’ll be discussing this in Brazil and Turkey. Garmon as a company has always thought that transparency and communication is the key to long term success and in a growth over time, and we feel the same about our customers and partners. If they thought it was interesting, if they learnt anything, then we want to continue to replicate this and make it a regular event,” said Kimberly.
Adding to this Vijay said, “Maybe, after 6 months we are planning to hold such event in Bangalore which is a hub of the garment industry. We are thinking of organising this event every year with the technology people like Jeanologia. It is our duty to make people aware of these technologies and concepts. Then, only with this you can grow the business” .
