The Green Agenda

One of the eye-catching brochures seen at the recently-concluded ITMA Asia? 2014 in Shanghai was from VDMA, containing an in-depth analysis of technology titled "German Technology: Higher Energy Efficiency – Higher Profits". The analysis compares the German technology of model year 2013 with German technology available one decade ago. The German technology has successfully reduced 28 per cent of energy consumption for the production of jersey fabric during the past ten years. The saving effects – applied to the production of one T-shirt per year for each of the 7 billion inhabitants of the earth – are enormous: If the worldwide production of cotton T-shirts was made completely on German state-of-the-art technology the output of two coal power stations in Beijing with a total gross power of 1000 megawatt could be saved every year — a sensible claim that made the readers lend a keen ear to the argument in favour of energy saving.

Italians did not mince many words. ACIMIT, the association of Italian textile machinery makers, published the second edition of ACIMIT Green Guide, providing a summary of the actions taken by Italian textile machinery firms in the field of sustainability. For the companies adhering to the Sustainable Technologies project, the Green Guide lists the technology innovations that allow machine users to cut production costs while adopting environmentally friendly measures. Many companies exhibiting at ITMA Asia? laid emphasis on energy savings and eco-friendliness. There has been a clear bias towards adopting machinery with excellent performance that are eco-friendly, providing environmental as well as economic advantages, while significantly cutting costs related to water, energy and waste consumption. A sustainable industry is above all a competitive industry, producing value and social wellbeing, and it is a responsible industry because it looks towards the future. This was the greatest rallying point of most of the textile machinery industry, which converged at Shanghai for this big event, and undoubtedly this concept is expected to gather momentum in the coming decade.