The Indian Textiles and Apparel sector is a USD 100 billion plus production industry providing direct employment to over 45 million people and accounts for 14% of India’s Industrial production.
In terms of capacity, the industry has the second largest vertically integrated textiles production base in the world after China.
Having said that, the sector is also a significantly polluting industry thereby creating an urgent need to implement sustainable and environmentally friendly methods of production.
Emphasising this need and the importance of lowering the overall carbon footprint of the industry Mr Suchira Surendranath, Director – Strategy & Investment, Brandix India Apparel City recently spoke at the 14th edition of Texcon, 2022 organised by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in New Delhi.
‘Sustainability needs to be part of the corporate’s DNA, integral to its strategy. It’s a lot more than mere compliance. It’s about living by a code and that’s what we strive to do. In 2008, Brandix received the world’s first LEED Platinum rating for an apparel manufacturing facility. In 2019, we received the world’s first Net Zero Carbon certification for an apparel manufacturing facility. So, we’ve maintained our focus on sustainability through the years’ attested Mr Suchira.
Brandix India Apparel City (BIAC) located in the port city of Visakhapatnam in the state of AP, is a self-sustaining eco system bringing together world-class apparel supply chain partners to collaborate and co-create Inspired Solutions for branded apparel clothing. BIAC has been walking the talk on sustainability with the slew of environmentally friendly initiatives it has undertaken at the park.
At BIAC 50% of the parks’ annual water supply is met thru eco-friendly sources, it harvests rainwater thru combined 500 million litre capacity ponds, has a State of the art water treatment plant capable of treating 60 million litres of water per day and an Effluent treatment plant capable of treating 56 million litres of waste per day.
BIAC has also been at the forefront of empowering women workers as more than 18,000 of BIAC employees are women at Vizag facility.