Bangladesh’s textile industry is the nation’s largest export sector. Bangladeshi textile factories are now taking environmental issues more seriously as regulatory requirements become stricter and the economic benefits of sustainability become more widely recognized.

Huntsman Textile Effects and Promotion of Social and Environmental Standards (PSES) a textile industry initiative jointly developed by the governments of Bangladesh signed a memorandum of Understanding with the German Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, to raise industry standards in the management of textile chemicals by mills in Bangladesh, through managerial and technical training, audit and consultancy services,

Ten mills have so far signed up to the partners’ GIZ Chemical Environmental Management for Competitiveness Program. GIZ a German federal agency that promotes sustainable development around the world

Huntsman and GIZ will work closely with the local textiles sector, to develop industry-wide chemical management (CM) best practices in Bangladesh and accelerate the adoption of these practices to promote environmental and economic sustainability.

PSES has already made a great impact with their CM training program and other initiatives and are looking forward to doing even more through their new partnership with Huntsman Textile Effects. With Huntsman, they are committed to helping the industry eliminate hazardous substances from the production process in order to achieve a cleaner and safer textiles sector.

Huntsman Textile Effects has a long established presence in Bangladesh. As a global leader in the move to a more sustainable textiles sector, they have joined hands with GIZ in Bangladesh to help local factories optimize their production efficiency and environmental compliance whilst also building local competence to enable continued adoption.

Huntsman Textile Effects international staff would be also undergoing training on CM toolkit from GIZ, so that they can reach out to factories in other countries as well.

In 2012, Bangladeshi ready-made garment (RMG) sector was worth US$19 billion with more than 5,000 garment factories employed about 4 million people and accounted for 45 per cent of all industrial workers. Local textile mills and RMG factories to stay internationally competitive need to increasingly demonstrate that they operate in a socially and environmentally sustainable way.