IFC to launch 2nd phase of advisory service for green textile production
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) plans to launch the second phase of its advisory service—Partnership for Cleaner Textile (PaCT)—in Dhaka on Saturday, with an aim to achieve sustainable textile production.
Under the programme, garment and textile makers are advised to adopt modern technologies in factories and changing attitudes to reduce water and energy consumption in the next four years.
During the second phase, the World Bank arm targets to annually save 32 million cubic metres of water and 3.8 million megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity in 250 weaving, spinning, wet dyeing and finishing factories.
It aims to annually reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 701,588 tonnes, wastewater discharge by 28.8 million cubic metres and chemical use by 10,000 tonnes.
The factories will need to investment $63 million, Nishat Shahid Chowdhury, programme manager of Bangladesh PaCT, told a press briefing on the upcoming launch at the IFC office in Dhaka.
Two hundred factories got back the $39.1 million they invested in just 10 months and in turn saved $16.3 million every year, under the PaCT's first phase adopted in 2014, she said.
They also annually saved 21.6 million cubic metres of groundwater, which 840,000 Bangladeshis use on an average per year, and 2.5 million MWh of electricity, which was 5.4 percent of the national grid's output in 2015-16, said Chowdhury.
She said the first phase's achievements surpassed the targets by a huge margin, with annual carbon emissions reducing by 460,000 tonnes, equivalent to that generated by 98,000 cars in the same timeframe, and wastewater discharge by 18.8 million cubic metres.
The water needed to wash every kilogramme of fabrics also decreased from 169 litres to 133 litres or by 21 percent on an average in 53 factories which completely adopted the PaCT programme, she said.
Electricity consumption per kg of fabrics went down from 19.1kW hour to 15.6kW hour or by 19 percent in 50 factories, said Chowdhury.
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