Director of the Hanoi Energy Conservation Center (ECC Hanoi) Dao Hong Thai said “in the context of global economic slowdown and growing challenges from Vietnam garment and textile industry, the Hanoi Industrial Textile Joint Stock Company has been adopting a number of sound solutions such as improving management capability, using resources reasonably to reduce production costs, lowering product prices and increasing competitiveness via investment in cleaner production and energy efficiency solutions.

The Hanoi Industrial Textile JSC has two enterprises. The first is a cord fabric enterprise specialized in producing cord fabrics and cord fabrics dipped with glue which are used in the rubber and transportation sectors. The second is a non-woven fabric enterprise specialized in making non-woven fabrics used in transportation and construction sectors. To serve production operations, the company uses two main kinds of energy which are electricity and heat. In 2012, electricity bills cost nearly VND8 billion while the coal costs were approximately VND5 billion.

Realizing that the company’s energy consumption was very big, accounting for five percent of production costs, the steering board of Hanoi Industrial Textile JSC established an energy management department to deploy energy and raw materials saving solutions to its workshops, departments and sections. At the same time, the company prioritized adopting internal management solutions before applying investment solutions.

Thanks to consultancy by auditing experts from Systech Eco Company and after analyzing and reevaluating energy consumption situation, the Hanoi Industrial Textile JSC has adopted a number of energy efficient solutions including deploying workers in shifts to avoid using much electricity in peak hours, managing the repair and maintenance of equipment and facilities according to ISO standards and developing energy and materials management mechanism of based on production cost and energy consumption norms on each type of products. The company has also replaced low capacity lamps with high capacity alternatives, helping to save 35 percent of energy, and replaced high pressure halogen bulbs with normal ones, saving 40 percent of electricity consumption. Therefore, the total value saved was estimated at VND33 million a year.

At the non-woven fabric enterprise, the Hanoi Industrial Textile JSC took advantage of natural light in the daytime and helped save VND9.8 million a year, upgraded the heat-conducting pipe system of ovens, helping save VND24 million a year, installed more ventilators in the workshops, helping lower the temperature from 47 to 32 degrees Celsius and helping create a better workplace for workers and improve product quality.

After the two months following the adoption of the solutions advised by Systech Eco Company, the results proved economically efficient and almost exactly in line with previous calculations. Among them, the installation of new energy saving equipment at the cord fabric enterprise helped save the most costs, at approximately VND58 million a year. Therefore each year the Hanoi Industrial Textile JSC can save more than VND130 million thanks to cleaner production solutions.

From this success, in the near future, the Hanoi Industrial Textile JSC will continue to maintain these cleaner production solutions. This is seen as a suitable and indispensable way for any garment and textile enterprises that expects to achieve sustainable development. By following this policy, enterprises also well perform their social responsibility, contributing to mitigating the negative impacts on the environment and helping to curb the waste of resources./.