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HONG KONG: German and Japanese machines whir endlessly in one of
Hong Kong’s few remaining spinning mills as the droning sound of
raw US cotton being spun into thread for clothing made in China hums
24 hours a day.
The mill is one of only two remaining in the
city where more than 30 thrived just 20 years ago.
This one has only been able to survive the
exodus toward cheaper labor over Hong Kong’s northern border in
China, because it is so heavily mechanized.
But mill owner Pat-Nie Woo, the third generation
of his family to run the company, now faces another challenge to
maintain his competitive edge—slashing his carbon footprint.
“The companies that are going to make the best
of the material resources are going to survive and everyone else is
not going to survive. Reducing your impact on the environment is
crucial,” Woo told Agence France-Presse.
Woo’s company is at the vanguard of a
realization among a currently small number of factory owners in Hong
Kong and southern China that greenhouse gas emissions must be
dramatically cut to prevent catastrophic global warming.
He has joined with the environmental pressure
group WWF to develop a carbon labeling system, which aims to provide
a simple measure of how effective factories have been in reducing
emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2).
The system will be similar to the labeling
system used to measure the efficiency of refrigerators.
China’s rampant industrialization in recent
decades has meant it is set to overtake the US as the world’s
number one source of greenhouse gas emissions, prompting criticism
it is not doing enough to halt global warming.
But Woo’s move, along with around a dozen
fellow factory owners, is not simply an assertion of green
credentials—he is hard-headed enough to recognize the financial
advantage of cutting his energy output as costs rise on rocketing
oil, gas and coal prices.
“Everyone is facing severe cost pressures. On
one side we have the commodities increasing in price, on the other
side we have a slowing economy, but buyers are still asking for
discounts,” Woo said.
Early indications show the scheme could reduce
the company’s energy bill by between 10 percent and 20 percent,
the equivalent of almost 2,000 homes, said Woo.
“To save 20 percent on your electricity bill
and to be able to reduce energy consumption when the whole of China
is lacking energy? It is a no-brainer.”
Global model
Liam Salter, head of WWF Hong Kong’s climate
and energy program, said the scheme, which he believes is the first
of its kind in the world, will allow participants to prove to
Western buyers their carbon credentials.
Salter said commitments from US retail giant
Wal-Mart and British supermarket Tesco to reduce the carbon
footprint of their entire supply chain had created an opportunity
for such innovation.
“The nightmare scenario for manufacturers is
that buyers come out with five different requirements on carbon,
which just pushes up costs. This project gives a chance for
manufacturers to differentiate themselves in front of buyers,” he
said.
Initial signs are positive.
Since Woo’s Central Textiles and fellow
manufacturers launched the Sustainable Fashion Business Consortium,
a group that aims to promote sustainable development in China’s
clothing industry, earlier this year, they have been contacted by
Tesco about their work, he said.
The scheme will assess a factory’s systems and
technologies and the success it has made in reducing its overall CO2
emissions.
WWF hopes to trial the system later this year
before encouraging factories across the Pearl River Delta to use it.
More than 30 percent of the world’s clothes are made in China,
mainly in the factory-belt bordering Hong Kong.
Alex Yeung, from the Hong Kong-based Clothing
Industry Training Authority, who will train industry workers to use
the program once it has been tested, said the initiative showed that
Chinese factories were keen to promote a more positive image,
following safety and labor scandals that have dogged them over the
past two years.
“We want to show that we can do more than be
pushed, that we can be more proactive [in dealing with problems],”
he said.
Salter concedes that the program will initially
be small-scale, but insists that if a robust, easy-to-use system can
be developed, it could have a significant impact on both
manufacturers and buyers.
“This mechanism will help us see how serious
the Western companies are. This is not about bullying your factories
into becoming low carbon, you are going to have to offer support to
factories wanting to improve,” he said.
Woo, who also owns a huge spinning and weaving
operation in southern China’s Guangdong province, played down the
need to satisfy Western buyers and insisted the move was not just
motivated by the need to survive.
“It is every factory owner’s responsibility
to be sustainable on an ongoing basis. It has to be sustainable in a
business sense, but also in an environmental sense,” he said.
-- AFP
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