Innovation

The Bangladesh community is at a tipping point…the question being ….what happens if they run out of water ?

Geographically Bangladesh is faced with many issues around water quality and quantity. Water usage has been exceeding water replenishment for decades. The rapid growth of the textile industry while supporting communities with employment is at the same time depleting a fragile environment, undermining the communities themselves.

This is a global issue, creating environmental impacts on communities where garments are made, not where they are sold. Bangladesh exported $45 billion USD in 2022, these figures continue to rise year on year, with Bangladesh the 2nd highest apparel exporting nation. (WTO World Trade Statistical Review 20230) https://www.wto.org/english/res_e/publications_e/wtsr_2023_e.htm

Between 2013-2015 World Wildlife Fund and H&M Group completed two research projects which opened the initial dialogue around water resource challenges facing Bangladesh. The 2030 Water Research Group was then established to strengthen water policy in Bangladesh.

Given the mutual reliance of the textile sector and the Bangladesh economy on each other, technological innovation was required to find solutions with urgency. Less Water Dyeing became an everyday conversation in Bangladesh.

In New Zealand, The Warehouse were integrating Sustainability into their business and by 2021 looking beyond fabric composition and into the less transparent areas, often masked by the supply chain, of fabric dyeing and processing. The obvious place to start was with volume t-shirt programmes from Bangladesh. An initial assessment for Summer 2023 Children's T-shirts indicated that over a million litres of water could potentially be saved by utilising Less Water Dyeing for this programme alone.

The Warehouse team in Bangladesh drove the collaboration between suppliers in Bangladesh, the Sourcing, Buying and Sustainability teams in New Zealand to ensure this initiative was integrated into the business in a commercially viable way. Rolled out over 3 years, impacting over 3.8 million garments so far, Less Water Dyeing is now a standard requirement for these volume programmes.

TWH Bangladesh team, TWG CEO, TWG Chief Sourcing and Sustainability Officer, TWG Head of Sourcing.

Inspiration

Peter McKenna has been based in Bangladesh working for global apparel retailers, for 12 years. In 2015, Peter was involved in a project for a European retailer to investigate new processes and machinery using less water and fewer chemicals in fabric dyeing. Moving to The Warehouse as Office Manager in 2020 was a great next step for Peter, as he felt that The Warehouse had a real commitment to sustainability.

The initial inspiration for Peter was seeing the implications for people, for crops, for food supply and secondly for businesses in Bangladesh. Looking beyond the production process and seeing the potential social and environmental impacts.

Peter noted, “Sustainability was being talked about more in New Zealand than it was in France at that time. For me it was interesting as I had come with some ideas like Recycled Cotton and Less Water Dyeing, Denim processes to use less chemicals and dyestuff to make a more sustainable product. When I joined there was a big push within The Warehouse to establish a more sustainable product.”

Aside from a commitment to Sustainability within The Warehouse business, the urgency of water saving was also a lived experience for the New Zealand team at that time, as much of the country was facing water shortages. Saving water wasn’t a foreign concept or a difficult conversation. Synergies came into play which aligned the purposes of businesses in both countries, creating motivation for change through the supply chain. The expectation to use less water is now becoming standard in Bangladesh. The Warehouse expect Less Water Dyeing to be used for volume t-shirt programmes as standard practice.

Peter indicated, “One of the things I think is more of a truism now…there is just an expectation that a product has levels of Sustainability, that it isn’t wasteful, that the manufacturing isn’t wasteful ….There’s a general expectation that a product is coming from a cleaner source than it did 5 years ago.”

Overall impact

Less Water Dyeing has been strategically leveraged into The Warehouse ranges over the past 3 years.

The internal process for validation, verification and reporting was established, order quantities were consolidated and managed to meet minimum batch quantities and supplier capacity was confirmed during cost negotiations to ensure these initiatives remain cost neutral for the business. The Bangladesh team worked closely with factories and fabric dyers to enable this, reviewing machinery and processes to collaboratively establish an end to end process that was scalable and controllable.

In 2022, as the end to end delivery of this initiative was tested and refined, approximately 200,000 garments in Black and Navy Single Jersey fabric were produced in the first 6 months, using Cold Pad Dyeing. While the dyeing technology was in place, the process to utilise this technology within The Warehouse product ranges was new.

Approximately 870,000 garments were processed using Less Water Dyeing in total during 2022, as the initiative was rolled out to a broader range of Less Water Dyeing processes and fabric colours.

This increased to 1.5 million garments in 2023 as all core t-shirt programmes were included. Planned units for 2024 are currently around 1.3 million garments for the first half of the year.

All of these garments are made using 100% Cotton Single Jersey fabric, utilising Less Water Dyeing techniques. The planned shift toward utilising Water Saving Dyeing has without a doubt delivered significant water savings.

Data shared by The Warehouse shows an approximate water saving of 4.8 litres for a Childrens T-shirt and 7.7 litres for a Mens T-shirt. On the assumption of an average water savings of 6 litres per garment, in 2022 close to 5 million litres of water was saved, by 2023 water savings were 9 million litres, with the projection for 2024 being 7.8 million litres of water saved for the first half of the year.

Alongside the measurable water savings, these processes also utilise fewer chemicals and energy.

Peter stated, “The Country depends on garment manufacturing, but we also need water. One of the things I think will be interesting is that water worldwide now is becoming an issue. Everybody is starting to say we need to save water, it’s not always free and it’s not always here. Those assumptions from the past are not the same now as people look into the future.”

Business benefit

Building trust over time can be complex for businesses trading across countries through global supply chains. Economic benefits are not evenly distributed through the supply chain and environmental impacts of production are felt in the country of manufacture, not the country of consumption. Transparency and collaboration can be challenging.

Acknowledging a shared problem and aligning to a common purpose enabled this initiative to work. Trust was built between factories, dye houses and The Warehouse teams in NZ and Bangladesh.

Apparel production is an industry historically protective of knowledge and relationships. The openness of information sharing to support the common good reflects a significant shift in thinking.

For the suppliers in Bangladesh, changes were made that directly impacted their local environment and the costs of running their businesses. Peter noted during the interview, “The thing about this process is, it’s about “use less.” Not only do they use less water but then they use less chemicals in their chemical ratio, so you’re using less chemicals and less salt. Another big plus….which is why the factory owners were so keen on it …was it meant that their water treatment plant had less water to treat, because it was using half the water. This meant there were less chemicals being processed and being used, to actually treat the water so the water goes back clean and is fully stripped on any harmful chemicals, it is safe to go back into the river supply. There is just less of it to go back in. And if the factory wants to expand their business, it helps the factory as they don’t need a new water treatment plant because the amount of water going into the plant is less. Overall, it’s a really great project and one I was really interested in. It’s one of those things where you feel like you are really making a difference. Bit by bit we all just have to use less. We are looking at finite resources and in Dhaka especially the topic of water is so important because Dhaka is the biggest garment manufacturing city in the world, and it consumes water.”

The economic considerations for The Warehouse were simply that the initiative remained cost neutral, that costs did not increase, but could be offset by managing the programme in the right way through continual improvement and increasing volumes over time. The longer term economic benefit for both parties is a stable and Sustainable manufacturing process and supply chain, the social benefit is grounded in protecting the local environment and communities.

Social and environmental benefit

“Saving What We Can’t See” is the title of this article, as it embodies the ethos of Less Water Dyeing not being visible to customers buying these garments in Aotearoa New Zealand. Yet the unseen environmental and social impact of Less Water Dyeing in the Country of Manufacture is significant. This was an initiative driven by the need of an industry to do better and achieved by alignment through the supply chain across countries and cultures. In Aotearoa New Zealand, there a cultural ethos of Kaitiakitanga, acknowledging that we are guardians of the natural environment and the resources within it, on which we all depend.

Businesses have a responsibility to grow resources for future generations, not just for short term or individual profit. It is reassuring to see respect for the global community we are all part of reflected through this initiative to save water and support communities with a broader perspective than a purely economic focus.

Having a new technology or having great ideas is of limited value unless they can be applied into real world situations. The Warehouse team and their suppliers achieved that. The technology was there but needed refining, new ways of working needed to be established and trust built. The truly inspiring part is seeing the commitment to a common purpose across countries and cultures.

Peter spoke of “The commitment to people. Sustainability isn’t just fabric, it’s a commitment to your workforce, to the people who come to your factory every day and stitch these garments.” He also noted that, “..water worldwide now is becoming an issue. Everybody is starting to say we need to save water, it’s not always free and it’s not always here. Those assumptions from the past are not the same now as people look into the future.”

Interview

Peter McKenna, Bangladesh Office Manager – The Warehouse Ltd