Let´s look at some examples in India and its neighbour, Bangladesh.
Exploration Architecture, a company that specialises in biomimicry, has completed its design for a sustainable factory in Nagpur, India, that aims to address both the human and environmental challenges facing the country´s textile industry. The innovative building should radically reduce energy and water usage and the design team´s goal is to create a zero-waste factory that is also an inspiring environment in which to work.
Exploration said its client-whose identity is confidential, but which trades almost exclusively in high quality cotton for overseas markets, with a significant proportion of the output being either printed and dyed-is a pioneer of sustainable thinking and challenged the architects to change the paradigm for factories in India: ¨The structure should be designed and engineered to use the least material possible and should provide a world-class environment for the 600 people who will work at the factory…. and be a viable, sustainable and profitable business.¨
Textiles is a water and power intensive industry, which makes the project all the more difficult because the client´s aim is to channel all waste into a circular or closed-loop system, in order to get as close to zero waste as possible. Sustainability, both environmental and social, has become an issue that is gripping the Bangladesh textile industry. The collapse of the Rana Plaza textile and garment producing hub in Dhaka, in 2013 [killing 1,133 and injuring more than 2,000 workers] shocked many importers, consumers, NGOs and politicians into an awareness of need for social sustainability, as well as environmental sustainability.
It is estimated that the textile factories in Dhaka currently consume 1,500 billion litres of groundwater annually to produce 5 million tonnes of fabric, with every kg of fabric gobbling up 300 litre against the global standard of 100 litre per kg of fabric. But signs are there things will be changing soon.