Green production for sustainable development

Green production requires textile and garment businesses to use recycled yarns - photo: Can Dung

Last year, Trung Quy Textile Company, for example, invested more than VND270 billion in a 10,000-square-meter factory in Long An Province’s Duc Hoa District to realize green production. This has helped the company reduce water consumption by 60-70 percent compared to the use of old technology. With its green production line, Trung Quy is capable of providing two million meters of high quality, international standard fabric per year for domestic garment enterprises. The company has exported two containers of organic fabrics since its launch of green production.

Tran Hiep Thanh Textile Corporation has applied green production through reducing CO2 emissions. The company has replaced old equipment and machinery with new ones, and used increasingly natural and recycled materials.

Other textile and garment companies have shifted to rooftop solar power systems and replaced coal-fired and oil-fired boilers with electric and natural material-based boilers. However, green production is costly, as the cost of green raw materials is triple that of conventional materials and electric boiler application increases the production cost by 15-18 percent.

Vietnamese textile and garment enterprises exported products worth US$18.6 billion in the first half of 2023

Vu Duc Giang, Chairman of the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS), said green production requires textile and garment enterprises to use recycled fibers, build factories in accordance with domestic standards and commitments in free trade agreements (FTAs) that Vietnam has signed, use natural products such as solar energy, apply rooftop solar power, join production and supply chains and meet foreign and global partners’ requirements and standards.

The VITAS leader proposed that the Government have specific strategies and policies for green production, including a natural resource and environmental fund offering interest-free or preferential loans for production greening businesses. A strategy for the development of textile-garment and leather and footwear industries to 2030, with a vision to 2035 has been approved by the Government, Giang said.

In the first half of 2023, Vietnamese textile and garment enterprises exported products worth US$18.6 billion, down 17.6 percent compared to the same period last year.

It is important for the Government to have and efficiently realize practical solutions to develop the country’s textile and garment industry, while state authorities need to listen to businesses to help them overcome difficulties.