AKH Group opens flagship green factory

AKH Group, one of the leading garment exporters, yesterday opened an eco-friendly factory at Dhamrai on the outskirts of Dhaka, with the hope of exporting $80 million of products a year.

Named AKH Eco Apparels Ltd, the company spent Tk 150 crore to set up the factory.

Thanks to its green credentials, the factory will be able to reduce electricity consumption by 1,295 megawatt-hour a year, fuel oil by 325 tonnes and water use by 30 percent.

About 25 percent of the electricity demand will be met through solar power.

The new factory received gold certification from LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), one of the most popular green building accreditation programmes used around the world. Gold is the second highest LEED rating, after platinum.

“We started construction of the building in the middle of 2014, when our customers were pushing for such production units,” said Shamsul Alam, managing director of AKH Group, set up in 1997 by three friends at a rented house in Shyamoli with with Tk 52 lakh and 300 workers.

Of the total invested amount in the new venture, 85 percent came from the company's own funds and the remaining 15 percent from local Exim Bank. Its long-term buyers provided technical support.

“If the government can supply us gas with adequate pressure, we can build such eco-apparel buildings every two years, as we have a lot of potential and customers.”

The factory, which sits on 13 acres of land, has a rainwater harvesting system. Rainwater will be reused to reduce the consumption of groundwater, according to the company.

“For AKH Eco Apparels, its management, employees and customers, the future is now,” said Roger Hubert, H&M's head for Bangladesh and Pakistan. H&M is a major customer of AKH Group.

About 150 factories either open or under construction are applying the green concept. They are the “future of Bangladesh's garment industry”, he said.

These visionary and daring entrepreneurs have opened a path for Bangladesh to become a global role model for the garment sourcing market, according to Hubert.

But for that to happen, building green factories is not enough: establishing solid water, chemical and waste management is a must and all stakeholders have to join forces in this gigantic task, Hubert added.

The Tazreen fire and Rana Plaza collapse have urged the garment makers to reinvent and take the sector to a new height, said Quamrul Islam Rajeev, senior vice-president of Li & Fung, another buyer of AKH Group's wares.

“AKH symbolises the new future of Bangladesh. A transformation has been happening in Bangladesh in a new and innovative way,” said Marcia Bernicat, US ambassador to Bangladesh.

February 6 is a day of pride for AKH and the EU as the European trade bloc has been supporting Bangladesh's trade with duty-free benefit, said Pierre Mayaudon, EU ambassador to Bangladesh.

“If we want to export $50 billion worth of garment items by 2021, we need such green factories and support of the buyers,” said Siddiqur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.

“Over the last two years and nine months, there was no record of industrial accident in Bangladesh as factory owners have been improving safety in their production units,” said Commerce Minister Tofail Ahmed.

Bangladesh's exports to the US increased more than 16 percent to upwards of $5.5 billion last year despite the suspension of generalised system of preferences, he said.

It will cross $6 billion at the end of this year, when the total export of the country will surpass $33.5 billion, he added.

Former presidents of Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry AK Azad and Mir Nasir Hossain; German Ambassador Thomas Prinz; Japanese Ambassador Masato Watanabe, AKH Group Chairman Delwar Hossain, and FBCCI Vice-President Shafiul Islam Mohiuddin also spoke.

AKH Group's exports last year stood at $219 million and are expected to cross $250 million this year, Alam said. The group employs 18,000 people, with the number to surpass 20,000 by the year-end.

Currently, it has 14 production units in Savar and Dhamrai and can ship 2.6 million pieces of knitwear items and two million pieces of woven garment items in a month.