On 31 January, three expert panellists joined the Indo-German Centre for Business Excellence (IGC) to discuss the nexus between textile production and consumption and the circular economy.
*Panellists:*
◾ Angela Heucher, Senior Evaluator and Team Leader, German Institute for Development Evaluation
◾ Naresh Tyagi, Chief Sustainability Officer, Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail Limited
◾ Pranshu Singhal, Founder and Director, Karo Sambhav
The Indo-German Business Talk is a monthly webinar, free to panel and audience members.
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*Navigation:*
00:00:00 – 00:04:00 – Introduction
00:04:00 – 00:07:26 – How do sustainability and environmental initiatives influence corporate strategy?
00:07:26 – 00:09:09 – Has innovation had an impact on sustainability in the textile industry?
00:09:09 – 00:10:53 – Challenges and obstacles to achieving sustainability in the textile industry?
00:10:53 – 00:17:45 – What are the challenges of implementing material circularity?
00:17:45 – 00:21:57 – How does regulation affect corporate strategy?
00:21:57 – 00:28:12 – Is fashion too cheap/are cycles too short for consumers?
00:28:12 – 00:31:43 – Using technology to enhance transparency
00:31:43 – 00:35:58 – How to implement policy decisions on a national and international level
00:35:58 – 00:40:15 – Audience Question: “How do we measure if an economic sector is actually circular?”
00:40:15 – 00:46:39 – Closing remarks
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Welcome to the Indo-German Business Talk, the monthly format hosted by the Indo-German Centre for Business Excellence where we talk about all sorts of different issues that are pertinent to business relations between India and Germany. And today we will talk about the textile
Industry, textile business, and circular economy. As usual I’m joined by a group of experts, both Indian and German experts, who will talk with me about this issue, but as all the regulars know we will also bring in the audience, so we invite you to join us in the conversation and contribute and
We do that by two ways: one is that we have some questions that we pose to you, and actually I will present the first one very shortly, and the other is that we invite you to ask your questions to our
Panellists through a chat function. The system that we use for that is Slido and you should be able to see, at the bottom of the screen, just underneath me, the link and also a QR code so those are two
Ways to access Slido, you can already go there you can post questions and in a moment I will open up the first question and the first question that we would ask you, our audience, is “Which factors hinder the incorporation of circular economy in textile production or consumption?” This is a question where
You can type in words, your answers, please do that now while I will continue here introducing our panellists. I’m very glad that we have three, wonderful guests here today and I will begin with Naresh Tyagi. Naresh is a prominent figure in the apparel textile and retail industries in
India where he’s currently making significant contributions at the company Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail, his expertise spends across business units fostering innovation, strategic initiatives, and integrating sustainability into business operations. Naresh is deeply involved in environmental and social courses and he holds leadership roles in global and national platforms
Such as Cotton 2040, the Ellen McArthur Foundation and the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. Welcome to our webinar. Next we have Angela Heucher, Dr Heucher is a Senior Evaluator and Team Leader at the German Institute for Development Evaluation. With her background in Political and Social Sciences, Dr Heucher’s work
Focuses on sustainable textile supply chains, human rights, and gender equality quality in post conflict contexts. She has a rich history in research including at the Free University of Berlin and the University of Potsdam where she contributed significantly to understanding governance in areas with limited statehood, welcome also to you to our webinar. And finally we have Pranshu
Singhal who is the Founder of Karo Sambhav and he is a visionary in the realm of Circular and EPR Solutions. His organisation is at the forefront of establishing a comprehensive system for waste management in India covering e-waste, plastics, batteries and glass. Pranshu’s background includes significant roles at Microsoft and
Nokia and he is recognised as an Aspen fellow, an Ashoka fellow, Chevening Gurukal fellow and an Aspire Circle fellow, that’s a lot of fellowships. He holds a Master in Environmental Management and Policy from IIIEE in Sweden, Pranshu also welcome to you. Narish I would like to start with
You, at your company Aditya Birla Fashion and Retail how have sustainability and environmental initiatives influenced the strategy and the operations of your company? Thank you and it’s pleasure to be part of this discussion. If we talk about that sustainability, we started
The journey almost a decade back in 2012-13 but we were doing earlier also this as a part of unstructured approach but with the proper plan and strategy we started in 2013, we call it ReEarth program For Our Tomorrow, and this was kind of with vision that we want to give back
More to the ecosystem what we take it from and that I think was strategic intent and with that strategic intent we created that 10 Mission and we put leadership to drive the agenda it was not separate in periphery sustainability agenda it was part of business discussion and a strategy
Itself. 10 Mission from energy, water, zero waste to land field, product packaging, CSR, safety we try to cover everything whatever is related to that sustainability because our three pillar of sustainability approach is responsible stewardship, as a responsible organisation what we have to look at
Beyond compliance and do something which is good for all stakeholder, not only for the selected stakeholder but for everyone, and second pillar is that co-creating and co-designing and collaborating with stakeholder which is good for everyone, and then finally looking into that future proofing what are the solution and innovation we can drive together to make that
Change happen? It was very simple strategy and it started ahead of time in 2012 and it was similar to that what we do the business review, annual, quarterly and three year plan, and by default in that whole process has become a strategic and sustainability was part of the business strategy
And operation. And the good thing happened that there was no team in sustainability that time, each mission, 10 mission, one C-leader was given to drive it and in that way it become part of our operational excellence and later on we extended it as a business excellence activity and that
I would say that sustainability and strategy complement each other, it’s not either or because sustainability is ability to sustain in short-term to long-term and the strategy also enable that thing to happen in short-term to long-term. Angela in your evaluation work have you seen that innovation
Has had any impact in terms of sustainability for the textiles industry, what are you seeing there? Well what we’re seeing is in our evaluation on German development corporation’s efforts in the sustainable textile sector is that there are a multitude of different instruments that German
Development corporation uses and this is quite important because as we are all very well aware of textile, supply chains are inherently complex, they span across multiple countries, there are many different actors involved and the environmental and social challenges abound, so what we see is
Like I said a range of different instruments targeting purchasing companies, targeting textile factories on the ground, targeting consumers so a very encompassing approach and I think one of the important things, one of the important measures, that are supported is exactly on bringing companies, different stakeholders together, in multi-stakeholder partnerships, also as a way
To facilitate the transfer, the dissemination of information and also of innovations and that is one aspect of it, another aspect I think focuses more on the regulatory side so do you have a regulation supporting for instance innovations in chemical supply management?
So I think these are sort of different aspects, facets which need to come together in a holistic way. In your experience, your research, what do you think what are the biggest challenges or obstacles? Well I think in general they are, there are so many different challenges, I
Think one side of course are the consumers, so do they actually purchase social and environmentally responsibly-produced textiles? How easy is it actually as a consumer to know which textiles fulfil certain criteria? There’s a sort of a range of different labels,
So it can be difficult for the consumer to orient oneself, that’s one aspect. There’s the aspect of regulation, so in Germany we now have a law since last year on, not just confined to the textile sector, but over all to sustainable supply chains and this is also an important
Step because it gives a binding framework for companies which they have to adhere to so it also levels the playing field a bit because a lot of environmental and social efforts can be more costly so you now have binding regulations which apply to to a set of of companies and
I think you also have a lot of issues pertaining to the textile factories on the ground, for instance, we did a case study of German development cooperation measures in Bangladesh and we saw that they try to address the textile factories themselves the management,
That there are measures to support regulatory changes at the national level and that there are also efforts to support workers to make them more knowledgeable about their rights and to support them for also advocating for their basic rights. Pranshu you and
Your organisation, you’re at the forefront of some of these initiatives when it comes to implementing sustainability, what are those initiatives and how do you see what Angela and, also before Naresh, have said from your perspective? Thank you and so let me broadly share what the kind of
Work that we do, so we are a grass root organisation and we focus on material circularity so we only come at the end of life, when a product has, you know, completely, let’s say, it has been refurbished,
It has been repaired, you know and it has completed all its cycle, so any extension is no more possible and it now needs to be either recycled or managed in some form. So three issues that I am seeing as
As very big you know in material circularity and if I were to go to textile we have been evaluating this sector right now we are active in five different sectors and textile has always been in consideration we have not yet you know gone big in the sector. The first is how
Do you enable collection at scale? And that is what matters you know, a scale which means it is easy for people to participate in a collection system. If I have a old cloth I know where to go
I know whom to call and I can easily get rid of it in exactly the same way we are able to order a new product, so today that ease of participation across sectors is the biggest limitation to going circular, whether we talk from a electronics perspective, textiles, tires any sector we pick
Collection systems are at the heart of you know material circularity and today it’s a challenge because it is not easy for people to get, to hand over these products, second there is very little trust on the existing systems; there are some brands, we have ABG [Aditya Birla Group] present here
Naresh is from ABG, who are trying to drive this phenomena, companies like IKEA, H&M to a extent, you know there is some driving force but still the trust on the inherent systems is not there. What happens to the product when I give it to a collection system? And that means,
Do people get to know about the end result of their good deed or an activity that they do? So that for me is the very first learning from the grass root level, that if the collection systems are not making it easy for people to participate, if they are not bringing in trust, then it is
Very difficult for people to participate, let’s not expect that participation. Second is from the recycling part, what do you do with the products post-collection? And today majority of the products are multi-material products, let’s take example of a simple you know shirt
Or you know or any t-shirt, you know it will have polyester, it will have cotton, it will have you know some amount of metal and the segregation of these you know if they are impounded in one single fabric how do you materially segregate and recycle these products? So while there are
Some interesting technologies which have come to the fore but scalable solutions are still challenging and so we are stuck with a kind of a technical and technological you know issue and this may lead to better product designing, this may lead to simpler ways by which
These different materials in a product can be segregated, again this is a cross-sectoral issue, we talk of electronics too many materials into one singular device. And then the third is how do we enable reutilisation of recycled content, so any recyclers that you are generating and are
People willing to pay for those additional costs if they are incurred? And that today becomes a huge bottleneck, we are not seeing any traction where people are willing to pay let’s say a premium which will allow for financing of collection, financing of recycling, financing
Of reutilisation of material because there is a inherent cost to going circular. Now it could be small in certain sectors but large in others so unless we have a very deep discussion and a deep understanding of what these costs are and how do we, you know, create business models which allow
This money to come in the system it will always be a challenge; so this is what we are seeing at a very, very grass root level that cost of going circular eventually is the biggest bottleneck and unless we know who’s going to take up these cost, whether it is the consumers or the brands,
You know, what’s the distribution of this cost I don’t know how to move this in a significant way. You mentioned those challenges and obviously the question of the cost, who’s going to pay for it eventually, do you think that that is an area where regulation could actually help because I know that
In Germany, for example, for electronics there is a mandatory system now that merchants have to take back old devices, they have to send it to recycling, I don’t think we have something for textiles as of now, but is that something that could help get all the players out of that conundrum?
Consumers don’t want to pay therefore you know producers are reluctant to implement anything. So regulation has obviously been a has played a significant role and we are seeing you know again a great amount of work being done especially in the European territory, multiple countries
Are looking at a whole range of sectors but again regulation also has a, you know, how do you enforce the regulation is then the, you know in a country like India, while there are great regulatory frameworks, the intent of government to implement is also there, but then the challenge comes on how
Do you enforce you know something which is as vast as this on the kind of people that are there? You are talking of individuals who have waste in their hands, businesses who are generating waste, so how do you enforce such a regulation in a meaningful way? The only answer you know that
I end up getting when I debate this internally, especially for economies like India, is we have to think of public disclosure, you know what is happening as of now put all the data in the public domain, what is the cost of going circular? How it is being? So my belief is you know
Regulation coupled with some level of public disclosure probably will be more helpful instead of just looking at enforcement as a possibility, we find ourselves very challenged on the enforcement angle. Let me remind our audience again that you can also ask us questions or ask the
Panellist questions, please go to slido you find the link and the QR code below me here in this little text box you can pose your questions there and I will then ask them on your behalf to our panellists. Naresh we talked a lot about regulation and obviously there’s one piece of regulation that
Came into force in Germany very recently, Angela mentioned, that to what extent does that influence your business model, your operations, your strategic thinking at your company? I think before I go to that regulatory, I think one of the, I just want to add on that what my co-panellist had
Already spoken about that challenge, I think in sustainability particularly in that Asian and Indian context, one of the thing which always get carried away is that sustainability doesn’t mean that it has to add cost and adding cost is not sustainability because resource efficiency if it
Is adding cost then it’s not right sustainable manner or maybe that we need to look into that the stakeholder where is the maximum leakage and maximum wastage is there? For example I will give you my own example, one share of 280g to 300g and the packaging is used almost 170 to 175g,
Is it sustainable and if I says that I need to make my packaging more sustainable first I have to eliminate and reduce that unwanted consumption of packaging. And I can tell you that when we look into that packaging and zero waste to landfill we find that 175g in hand of consumer, only
That 50 to 60g is important. Why consumer will pay extra if they are not using that packaging and we were able to reduce and eliminate all that unwanted plastic and packaging in our system. Today it is 72g, you know that with that we save lot of money and later now I’m giving example
Of how regulator is important. In India there is regulatory requirement plastic waste management and long back we eliminated plastic carrier bags from our retail store; there was no norms there, was no enforcement, we voluntarily did that and two years later we had that plastic waste management
And now we have EPR which is mandatory for that Indian producer, importer, brand-owner to declare how much you buy and consume and dispose of. I think sometime regulatory, unified the framework they give you standard to operate within that standard framework it’s enable but its responsibility come
In three way: one as a consumer, as a individual. How you are consuming the product and you need to be more sustainable consumption of the product. Second is organisation and corporate, how responsibly you are making the product and services which is sustainable. And third is that government and
Regulatory, where they put that all that unified way of operating framework and standard where it is playground for everyone to follow and sometime that it is difficult for even because particularly in India there is organised sector and unorganised sector; the big player can follow that all these
Things easily but the small unorganised, MSME sector they also need to be part of it and then it’s beyond regulatory how you involve them. I think that all three regulatory, corporate and organisation, and individual and society to consume the product, all three need to be in collaboration
And partnership to make this happen otherwise that passing the information from one to other and saying that corporate are doing it and consumer are not or consumer are doing and government not, maybe that is not collaborative way to be sustainable. There’s one thing you mentioned
And that is the cost of course you know so adding cost to production is not sustainable I think you said, now let me turn this around could one also say that fashion nowadays is too cheap, so the
The cost for the consumer makes it too cheap and what I want to allude to is of course this idea of fast fashion of ever faster circles of consumption because from a lay perspective one could say is that you know a lot of the questions when it comes to collection and recycling those
Things that Pranshu mentioned they would be less pertinent if the cycles would be longer so if we would simply you know use our clothes longer is that also a question, is it just too cheap for the consumer? I think that in my opinion that fashion need to be responsible these
Are different terminology that fast fashion, slow fashion design. Who made this fashion cheaper? Brand and retailer? And ultimately that you make sale use and throw model is not sustainable, because you are providing that fashion at cheapest cost reason because you are sourcing it from that
Country and region where labour is cheap, where resource is not regulated well, but ultimately it is cost of resources which is adding somewhere else and fashion cannot be cheaper because if there is proper compliance and proper way of doing business then it has set some cost. Sometime people
Take that compliance cost and bypassing that as a cheap fashion which is not right because that if as a responsible organisation be manufacturer be brand or be it any other supply chain partner it’s very, very important to understand what is that as a responsible
Fashion what is the sustainable model and make sale use and throw which is so-called that cheap fashion or fast fashion is not sustainable and is ultimately that changing behaviour of consumer to do something which is unsustainable, so I feel that we have to reverse the cycle and we
Have to get that more usability, more durability, more longevity, where life cycle goes for that longer use otherwise that your new product if it is cheaper than your recycled product then you are not mitigating natural resources risk what you have been doing in terms of making
It more and more cheaper. Angela you have the macro perspective looking at these things from a also research perspective is that true this trend towards fast fashion ever shorter cycles of you know buying and throwing away is that something that you actually see happening or
Is it more like anecdotal evidence that we have from you know looking at people around us maybe the way teenagers consume clothing is that a real thing or is it a myth? I think we’re seeing both at the same time so of course there is a lot of fast fashion, what we did see from
We did a representative survey of German consumers and we do see a rising awareness for sustainability, for social environmental issues as well and consumers are more willing to also pay more for sustainable textiles but at the same time it may be very difficult for
Consumers to actually know which criteria which textiles fulfil so I think in initiatives like this label, the green button, are very important to orient consumers in their decisions. But I think it also connects nicely to to a point Pranshu raised earlier on transparency and these
Issues of what do we actually know about the costs, the social and environmental costs, because right now they’re being externalised a lot of the time and the prices we see are not the prices that are actually there, I mean a lot of the costs you just don’t see them in the price tags we
Have so I think that’s an important point to raise. So what you’re saying is essentially is is more a lack of information that is available to the consumer, because I sometimes wonder if you know what people say when they’re asked about sustainability and their actually behaviour
As consumers they somehow differ because I can very well understand that you know a lot of people say this is important to us but then I see companies such as Shein for example which is a Chinese company which is, for all intents and purposes, seems to be extremely
Successful, especially with younger consumers in the Western world, doing so well with a model that as far as I understand it is not based on sustainability issues so is it a lack of information to consumers or is there also a little bit of a gap between stated intentions
And manifest behaviour as a consumer? I think it’s both definitely, it maybe a lack of information at some points but it’s also of course decisions consumers take, so we do see more sustainably-produced textiles being sold, so the amount is rising overall but it’s
Small in comparison to the overall textile market which is why I think it’s an important step to also look into these regulatory issues, to look into corporate due diligence obligations and to sort of address the purchasing companies and to make them responsible to some extent for
Looking into human rights and environmental risks throughout their supply chain and for taking measures to mitigate these risks. Now Pranshu both you and Angela mentioned the need for transparency and the need for consumers actually to make or be able to make informed decisions and
How this may also be a difficult because of course it is not easy to really see you know the different production steps, is that something where technology could help make the entire production chain of, for example textiles, but maybe also other other goods more transparent to the
Consumer? So on the technology side I think now we have a whole range of solutions which have emerged you know which are bringing transparency in the whole value chain including circular value chain, so if we are talking of, for example, you know tracing where was the waste generated, where
Did it move, how was it recycled, even these sort of solutions are out there for example we have our own tech platform which captures every single piece of information regarding the movement of waste till it has been truly recycled and it has gone back. However I don’t think that solves the
Problem, it’s a good thing to have but it is, it serves more as a corporate tool because it helps a corporation know that I am not having any social or environmental issues in my own secondary raw material supply chain so versus a, you know let’s say, a fresh raw material supply chain. So does it
Help consumer? I’m not really sure. For me you know I’m seeing a new model emerging where if we are able to and there are always costs, you know, it is honestly speaking you know from all
The work that we have done it is very only in certain products you can, you know you, have so much value in recycled content that you can offset the cost of collection ,recycling reutilisation, otherwise in most products it’s a cost, now the point is how much cost are we talking? Sometimes it can be
As low as like for mobile phones we find the cost of circularity is less than a you know less than 0.1% of the selling price of the product so it is minute it can be absorbed by the brand, whereas in
Other products it can be very high. What I find working is give consumer a clear visibility of this is the money that they have to pay and give them the choice of either paying or not paying. Wherever we have tried this approach that a person knows that need to pay let’s say some money extra
For it to be collected at the end of its life and it has contained, now they have a choice they want to pay or they may not pay but the good thing about such an approach is at least
Now it starts getting registered that there is a cost to it, it may be large or small, brands don’t have to force or a retailer doesn’t have to force anyone to you know pay for that but that choice eventually changes behaviour. You know I have been working in the space for Nokia for a very
Long time and we always try you know what is that nudge point we give to a consumer because unless you give a person a choice it becomes very difficult to drive behaviour change, so this is what I have arrived at especially in the last three, four years of work on how do you nudge
Consumer behaviour towards circularity. So you all seem to agree, if I understand it correctly, that the most important part is to enable the consumer to make an informed decision and then he or she can choose whatever they like basically. Angela, turning to you, but there’s also you know
This idea, and that is obviously based that in regulation, is that it’s not just the individual consumer’s decision to go for sustainability or not but there’s also some policy decisions that are taken on the national or, in case of the EU, even on the supranational level. Now ESG, of course, stands for environment, social, and governance
So it does not only have this environmental component but also the social and the governance. What do you say to people from countries, producing companies, such as India for example that say well it’s actually not the job of a of a region such as the European Union or a country
Such as Germany to determine for example what kind of labour standards another country is supposed to adhere to that is kind of a sovereign decision that the Indians should take for themselves or the Chinese or whoever else, is there also kind of a fine line that we’re trying to manoeuvre
Here between you know implementing some standards but also not patronising other countries in terms of their policy decisions? Well first of all, while I think that consumers are important and I think we’ve talk mostly about private consumers we could also talk about public consumers and how,
For instance, sustainability standards are part of public tenders. I don’t think consumers per se are the most important angle to look into this issue because it’s individual decisions, it’s a very broad and complex topic so I think for me, I do see more importance on the
Regulatory, on the governance side, on addressing the purchasing companies, their corporate due diligence and also on, for instance, regulation laws in countries like India or Bangladesh and in enforcement. So I think what the German and the European law mostly do is target purchasing companies in Germany or Europe or with a certain volume of
Operations, with a certain number of employees, and make them responsible to look into their supply chains throughout and to really look into the human rights and the social, the environmental issues and so on. That being said I think what a lot of
The regulation about is also in coherence with core ILO standards, which most countries have subscribed to so for instance from the International Labour Organisation on issues of of wages, on worker protection so there is sort of a core standard which most countries adhere to and
Which should be the basis also for this and then I think and in general with German development cooperation is what we look into it’s very much partner-oriented so the German side will look into it together with the partner and also see what are the initiatives the partner wants to take,
So this is sort of the decisive issue and I think because we also heard earlier that like a lot of good laws, a lot of good regulatory framework is there, you don’t necessarily need to address that but these enforcement issues can often be the major one
And that’s also where German development cooperation does have instruments it can use with technical cooperation, capacity building to sort of strengthen the capacity to actually enforce these laws, but I think overall for many countries like India, Germany’s role is probably not
That big actually because there’s so much going on anyway but there are ways in which German development cooperation can can support but I think overall the innovative solutions won’t be found by German development cooperation, they’ll be found by the businesses and there may be some
Roles in or some ways in which development cooperation can support innovations being disseminated, bringing companies together sort of supporting on this level but not actually finding the innovative solutions themselves. Thank you Angela and I have a question actually
From the audience that you may want to start addressing and then we’ll turn to the others and the question is: How do we actually measure if an economic sector, in this case I guess the textile industry, is circular?” I think we will need to break down circularity into various parts
So one is okay are products getting recycled, you know which is the end of life materiality you know circularity, or are we talking of refurbishment extension of life so again there are so many angles. What I believe is it is measurable it is not that it is not measurable.
So for example every company today knows how much virgin raw content they are using in their products versus a recycled content a simple declaration at this end or a globally- harmonised reporting mechanism will allow us to measure the material circularity purely you know
What is the material recycled content which has gone into the product? The moment we go into repair, you know refurbishment, it becomes very challenging because that is very informal still and that data collection is very difficult so again you know depending on the nature of what we are trying to
Define or if you want to say okay we want to check how many products are circular because of their design you know the design allows, the modularity of the product allows it to be refurbished, repaired, recycled, that is again so, data wherever it resides with large corporations
I believe it is very easy to measure and most of the companies are already reporting it in some form. I will also add on to that question. It’s possible to measure and there are certain framework and metrics available. I was working with Ellen McArthur Foundation they have that Circularity
Matrix which clearly define how is your input and throughput come through that various way of seven or five Rs: Recycle, Reduce, Refurbish, Repair, Redesign. So there are framework Ellen McArthur is one, then there is other framework available which has matrix is WBCSBC they have particularly for
Textile it’s called CTA now they are on that CTI 4.0 where they have further refined it how that material qualify to be called circular and they have that closed loop kind of metrics in that, that is second. Third in India, because most of these framework need to be relevant and customised
For the market because every market has different consumer and consumer understanding and awareness require lot of capacity building which Angela also talked about that, how consumer awareness and capacity. India particularly we work with that FICCI is one industry body, and we kind of look into that
What should be the right circulative matrix for measuring any corporate, where is the baseline, where is the starting point, and where they need to be setting the target with that five, six parameter. There are framework available but I think it depend on that how mature these framework are
Getting for implementation because it is not easy to understand everyone in capacity building and familiarisation on that matrix and framework is important, we are working with the GIZ development project where we are setting the textile manifesto on circularity especially for India. I think that
Different market may have that different understanding on that and depending on customer understanding and maturity it can evolve and move to that right matrix for them. Thank you. Good we’re already getting more or less to the end of our webinar so I would like to do a final
Round with our panellists and ask them to look a little bit into the future, so what do you see for the textiles industry, circular economy and sustainability, what will we see coming up there in the next few years and also maybe what are you hoping for? And I’d like to begin with you Angela.
Thank you, yeah really interesting question, so I think what I see or what I’m hoping to see, is a further development conceptually speaking but then also practically speaking on how we see textiles, circular economy in general. We actually also have an evaluation on circular
Economy which we just conducting right now and I think the most important point for my perspective is to see how to also overcome a sort of siloed-thinking and to also see it like within the German sector you have many different ministries working on these issues the Environment Ministry,
Development cooperation, economic, and so on and this I think really a topic circular economy where all of these can come together and sort of develop a coherent approach, a coherent thinking and think less in sort of the different silos but sort of develop an overarching
Approach which addresses the complexity and the multifaceted nature of this issue so that’s what I’m hoping to see. Thank you. Naresh, from your perspective as a producer what are you expecting and what are you looking for? We are not only producer we are the brand and retailer in India we
Are the largest brand and retail company in India, so from our perspective what I foresee textile, garment and retail as industry, one definitely that Gen-Z, new millennials, they are looking that company to be more responsible and they have flare to buy products which is more sustainable that I
See that early sign of that sustainable product consumption and demand. Second I think this is very important because this textile industry per se is very laggard in terms of research, innovation and technology adaption. Now a lot of pressure is coming from consumer side, regulatory and other
Stakeholder, innovation is the key to drive textile industry toward circularity. Third I think that it’s not about one or organisation and one company, there is need for capacity building and there is need for industry ecosystem. I foresee that many players are coming together and they will
Come together to build industry ecosystem, how you collect, how you segregate, how you sort, how you put R&D and that and then finally I think we live in a society, social part is very very important because this industry is built especially in India not only corporate, but MSME, unorganised sector.
Social part, ESG, social is very ,very important how you bring that social element into life and make it more sustainable the way other industry you buy a compliance or that home appliance you have a star rating but in a textile and apparel there is no rating so I think that environment-social
Angle will come into play when consumer start buying and looking for the sustainable product. Let’s hope that that will actually materialise. Pranshu, over to you, what is your perspective on circularity in the textile Industries in the years to come? My belief is I think a lot of push
Will come from regulation side and rightly so I mean while there has been a lot of dialogue and you know circularity is well now a very talked about term but it has I mean similar terms cradle to cradle I mean all these sort of things have existed in the past. I think what is
Needed is a very strong push from a regulatory side to drive this agenda and you were also earlier asking you know whether it’s a consumer or a producer or a regulator’s responsibility, I think because this is a societal transformation issue and you know at the heart of it it’s a fundamental
Transformation of how society works today whether it is patterns of consumption or patterns of production, I believe governments will have the biggest role to play here at least setting the benchmarks, setting the pathways and then it will be you know organised players and large
Players like corporates who will then define the pathways and consumers will be the last to follow. You know if we keep on waiting for the consumer demand to drive the sector I don’t think it’s going to happen because you know is that sort of marketing happening on sustainability like we
See for regular goods you know sold on the market the answer is no. Nowhere you know that information, dissemination that campaigning happens on such issues so I think it’s the regulatory push which is going to set the ball rolling and you know some brands, you know some very large brands, will
Have to play a drive to make it happen. While it is challenging I believe it will happen and you know organisations and governments will really make it happen. Excellent thank you very much, we see it’s a complex topic of course
That has to be addressed from different angles, the consumer angle, the production angle, the regulatory angle, thank you very much to my three panellists here today for providing very, very insightful perspectives from different angles that they come from, that they represent. I would also like to
Thank the audience of course, thanks for being with us again for listening, for watching this episode and of course we will be back next month with another topic that is important to Indo-German business relations, until then thank you very much and have a great day.