Indian MMCF producer Birla Cellulose's site achieves EU BAT compliance

"The initiative is in line with Birla Cellulose's aim to apply the best available technologies (EU BAT) at all of its fibre locations and investments of $170 million are in progress in order to achieve this by the end of 2022," the Aditya Birla Group company said in a press release.

“Adapting the best available technologies is an important milestone towards achieving global leadership in sustainable practices in the MMCF industry,” said HK Agrawal, chief operating officer of Birla Cellulose, a leading sustainability focused man-made cellulosic fibres (MMCF) producer.

"We are investing in innovation to continually improve our performance. This is the reason that our products come with sustainability credentials that are global benchmarks," added Agrawal.

Birla Cellulose has already achieved Carbon Neutrality in Scope 1 & 2 emissions by sequestration of carbon in its managed forests. Birla Cellulose is also ranked #1 in Canopy’s Hot Button Report for its sustainable forestry practices and innovations in NextGen solutions. Birla Cellulose has also established the global benchmark for lowest water intensity in the viscose manufacturing.

Grasim Vilayat has installed state-of-the-art closed-loop technologies to recover and recycle CS2, which is the key raw material for viscose manufacturing process. With these technologies, the site is able to significantly reduce its emissions and achieve 90-95 per centt recovery in terms of sulphur and recycle it back to the process. In addition to this, the site also meets all other EU BAT parameters. This was confirmed by an audit conducted by Sustainable Textile Solutions, UK (STS) recently. The site also meets the ZDHC MMCF responsible viscose production standards.

Vilayat is one of Birla Cellulose's flagship sites and post the ongoing expansion, it will be the world's largest MMCF manufacturing site. The on-going expansion project at Vilayat site, located in Vagra Tehsil of Bharuch district in Gujarat, is also designed to comply with EU BAT requirements and designed to achieve low energy consumption.

The Vilayat site will supply eco-enhanced fibres, Livaeco by Birla Cellulose (Viscose & Modal variants) to sustainability conscious brands globally. Livaeco by Birla Cellulose range of products comes with outstanding sustainability credentials such as EU BAT norms, FSC certification, low water and energy consumption and complete supply chain traceability from forest-to-fashion using GreenTrack platform.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)