Brandix to open first converted Green Factory

Sri Lanka’s Brandix Group will achieve an environmental milestone this month when the apparel sector giant formally commissions the country’s first redesigned Green Factory.

The 130,000 square-foot Brandix Casualwear factory at Seeduwa, the Group’s lead manufacturing plant for top international retailer Marks and Spencer (M&S) will surpass stipulated Green factory standards for energy consumption, water conservation, solid waste management and carbon emissions, the Group said this week.

The 30 year old factory has undergone an exhaustive conversion that took nearly 10 months to complete and will support Marks and Spencer’s ‘Plan A’ initiative to encourage suppliers around the world to make their supply chains carbon neutral through Green manufacturing processes.

“The commitment of M&S fired our own passion for best practices in eco-friendly manufacturing,” said Brandix Group Director AJ Johnpillai.

“The result is a redesigned factory that will reduce its carbon footprint by as much as 75 per cent, achieve a 45 per cent saving in energy and cut water consumption by nearly 60 per cent.”

He said the Green factory is one of a series of initiatives across the group to reduce its carbon footprint by at least 35 per cent by 2012.

With an investment of US 2.5 million Dollars, the conversion of the factory was made more challenging by the fact it was originally built more than 30 years ago, and that it had to continue production during its transformation into a Green manufacturing facility, Johnpillai explained.

Another challenge was a decision that energy conservation targets would be achieved with air-conditioning, which accounts for about 70 per cent of the energy consumed in a garment factory, he said.