CNTAC-ZDHC conference discusses green manufacturing

CNTAC and ZDHC have been organising green manufacturing related research and discussion every year since 2013. These conferences are gaining more and more attention and are witnessing increasing participation.

The latest conference, which was attended by more than 600 people, was jointly organised by CNTAC and ZDHC. It was co-hosted by China Textile Industry Federation Social Responsibility Office, China Textile Information Center, and ‘Green Manufacturing’ Industry Innovation Alliance.

CNTAC President Sun Ruizhe, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Department of Policy and Regulation Inspector Guo Xiu Ming, China Printing and Dyeing Industry Association representative Chen Zhihua, China Textile Information Center Director Qiao Yanjin, China Mianfang Industry Association official Dong Chunxing, China Textile Information Center Deputy Director of the China Textile Industry Federation of Social Responsibility Office Yan Yan, Honorary Chairman of the China Leather Industry Association Su Chaoying, China Plastics Industry Association of artificial leather Deputy Secretary-General Tian Jingyan and other leaders attended the meeting.

Frank Michel, Executive Director of ZDHC Foundation; Kevin Munn, Program Officer, Chemicals and Waste Sector, UNEP; Nathaniel Sponsler, Chairman of ZDHC Foundation; Scott Echols, Technical Director of ZDHC Foundation; and many international brands, textile and garment enterprises, clusters, industry organisations, non-governmental organisations and other representatives gathered together to jointly promote ZDHC strategic cooperation to further eliminate harmful chemicals, and to lead environmental protection and sustainable development.

China’s economic development has entered a new stage in recent years, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) has acquired much importance, said Xiu Ming. Green manufacturing has been given prominent position in ‘Made in China 2025’ released last year. This year, the Ministry of Industry and Standardization Committee have jointly prepared a green manufacturing standard manufacturing system guide, as the top green design standardisation of manufacturing.

Speaking about the focus of thirteenth Five-Year period on textile and apparel CSR, Xiu Ming said, “The first is to continue to further promote the full implementation of CSC9000T, promote harmonious labour relations, fair competition ecology, safe consumption environment, and enhance industry soft power. The second is to accelerate the green development process, strengthen the basic management of textile green manufacturing, accelerate the construction of green manufacturing system, and take the ecological civilisation to a new height. Third is continued focus on CSR to build the achievements and experience to other industries and continue to promote and lead the field of industrial and information technology.”

Sun Ruizhe said in his opening speech that the responsibility of the Chinese textile industry in the global supply chain as a fashion and consumer goods industry is to become an important force in promoting global sustainable development. The green development of China’s textile industry is related to the green process in global textile supply chain. Among them, the control of harmful chemical substances requires much attention.

In May this year, CNTAC and ZDHC Foundation reached a strategic cooperation, where in CNTAC will coordinate with the Chinese industry stakeholders and enterprises involved in the control of harmful substances in a unified supply chain operations, while ZDHC will support zero emissions of harmful substances in China’s industry and promote the ‘Action Plan for Innovation in Chemicals Management 2020’. Further, CNTAC and ZDHC will work together to promote the global textile supply chain management and control system for the establishment and integration of chemicals to promote China’s textile industry green manufacturing and sustainable development.

“The ZDHC Foundation is a vital force in the global supply chain,” said Ruizhe. In the Chinese industry, 49 textile, chemical and synthetic leather enterprises in the textile upstream and downstream industries have joined together to form a textile supply chain green manufacturing industry innovation alliance. In July this year, a joint initiative ‘Supply Chain Chemicals Management Innovation 2020’ was launched. This is an unprecedented coalition and action on the part of the global textile supply chain aimed at reducing or even eliminating negative impact of global textile industry on human health.

“We take this opportunity to appeal to the global textile supply chain as well as demand side to work together as it is our common responsibility to promote global fashion industry to become more environmentally friendly, green and sustainable,” Ruizhe said.

Frank Michel, Executive Director of the ZDHC Foundation, said in his speech that sustainable development and compliance across all aspects of the supply chain are relevant. ZDHC is also very concerned about the need for cross-border cooperation in the supply chain parties, the application of the scorecard, the implementation of sustainable development KPI in the scorecard, and green manufacturing. There is a need for consensus that if we do not control hazardous chemicals (today), there is no way to truly achieve sustainable and sustainable development.

Frank Henke, Vice President, Social and Environmental Affairs, Adidas Group, and Charles Dickinson, Head of Sustainability, Ethical Trading Environment, Primark, delivered a keynote speech. Henke discussed the relevance and importance of the global standards for the regulation of hazardous chemicals, while Dickinson shared his experience on how to achieve supply chain collaboration.

Subsequently, Kevin Munn, UNEP Chemicals and Waste Sector Project Officer, conducted a comprehensive analysis of the chemicals programme in the product under the Hazardous Substances Control Initiative. Yan Yan, Deputy Director of China Textile Information Center and Deputy Director of Social Responsibility Office of China Textile Industry Federation, conducted an in-depth analysis on CNTAC Chemicals Management Innovation 2020.

Yan Yan said green supply chain needs green manufacturing, which in turn is based on chemical control. Hence, amount and type of chemicals used in the textile and apparel industry cannot be ignored.

In 2011, the China Textile Alliance (CWI) started a dialogue on environmental stakeholders. This year, 2016 is the first year of the 13^th plan, and CNTAC launched the ‘Textile chemicals supply chain management innovation 2020 Action Plan’. The Action Plan is the basic framework for the Chinese textile industry to develop a five-year (2016-2020) action to meet the objectives of risk management of chemicals in the supply chain. It is a requirement for the management of chemical environmental risks in the textile and garment industry. It also has guidelines on capacity-building for harmonisation of research and innovative action.

The Platform for Action focuses on five major areas: technological innovation, standards integration, stakeholder cooperation, capacity building and information sharing. Its core objective is to establish a chemical risk prevention and control system for enterprises. Therefore, the construction of chemical management capacity of enterprises is very important. Finally, Yan Yan said that CNTAC will, as always, promote the sustainable development of the industry.

At the same time, the meeting also introduced the ZDHC joint roadmap plan. Scott Echols, Technical Director of the ZDHC Foundation, focused on Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (MRSL) and MRSL Compliance. The main purpose of the MRSL inventory is to focus on the chemical substances in the production process. Stefan Seidel, Director of sustainable development at Puma, gave a lecture around the ZDHC wastewater guide and suggested that the ultimate goal would be that all wastewater would not be released into the environment. Michele Carchman, Director of the ADEC Innovative Sustainability Programme, and Graham Storrie, Executive Director of ZDHC, shared the ZDHC chemical gateway. Jason Kibbey, CEO of Sustainable Apparel Consortium (SAC), outlined the cooperation between SAC and ZDHC.

During the afternoon session, Dai Jiabing, Chairman of Strategic Alliance of Green Supply Chain Industry of China Synthetic Leather Industry; Ma Jianhua, Manager of System Management of Pantai Textile Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd.; Liu Shuyun, Deputy Director of Lutai Textile Engineering Co.; Yong-Guang Huang, Director of chemical product liability presented different points of view on ZDHC MRSL and other tools to implement and share best practices.

Hu Kehua, Deputy Director of CNTAC’s Social Responsibility Office, and ZDHC Foundation Director of Asia, introduced the ZDHC and CNTAC 2017 China Action Plan.

The conference also commended ZDHC for its pioneering adopters and the CNTAC-ZDHC Pioneer for Chemical Management Innovation Project. The companies who are pioneers in implementing ZDHC are China Synthetic Leather Green Supply Chain Industry Innovation Strategic Alliance, Textile and Garment Supply Chain Green Manufacturing Industry Innovation Alliance. Likewise, pioneer pilot factories in adopting CNTAC-ZDHC Chemicals Management Innovation are Fujian Fengzhu Textile Technology Co., Ltd., Guangdong Esquel Textile Co., Ltd., Panyu Textile Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd., Hangzhou Xinsheng Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd., Lutai Textile Co., Ltd., Zhejiang Huafu Color Spinning Co., Ltd., and Zhejiang Mida Xinda Printing and Dyeing Co. (RKS)

Textile Science Research (China)