Contents
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu
Evaluation of Sustainability in Textile Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu
Environmental Sustainability in the Textile Industry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Kyung Eun Lee
Social Sustainability in Textile Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
S. Grace Annapoorani
Sustainable Practices in Textile Industry: Standards and Certificates . . . . . 79
K. Amutha
Sustainable Design and Business Models in Textile and Fashion Industry . . . 109
Rudrajeet Pal
Sustainability in Jute-based Industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Sanjoy Debnath
Introduction
Subramanian Senthilkannan Muthu
Abstract Textile industry is one of the basic industries which satisfies one of the basic needs of people and hence becomes as an inevitable part of human’s life. This book is planning to cover the detailed aspects of sustainability in textile industry encompassing environmental, social and economic sustainability in textiles and clothing sector. Beginning with the introduction to various faces and facets of sustainability, this book revolves around their implications to textiles and clothing sector. It is important and need of the hour to talk about the environmental impacts of textiles and clothing. But when it comes to sustainability of textiles and clothing, it is most commonly noticed from various sources such as literature and media that the other two pillars of sustainability namely social and economic are masked and carried away by the environmental impacts. Only environmental impacts are in focus when sustainability in textiles is defined. The other two parts or elements of sustainability are also equally important and they make much more sense when it comes to sustainability in textile industry. These uncharted areas will be discussed in detail to augment to the sustainability in textiles knowledge further.
Keywords Environmental sustainability _ Economic sustainability _ Social sustainability _ Raw material _ Manufacturing _ End of life
1 Introduction
Sustainability in textile industry is a vast topic and it cannot be explained in a single volume of book, as this topic encompasses a wide array of elements into it. This topic is mainly chosen as a theme or title of this book for manifold reasons and one of them is that this title is becoming more and more important these days and many universities in the world have started teaching subjects in this area and with a hope that this book can become as a useful reference for the students. Second reason is that this topic is so diverse and there is a lot more to write. There are many aspects of this topic, which were rarely touched or there are no books on those aspects.
The concept of sustainability is not new and it has been known to the world since 1962 after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. Publication of Silent Spring is the beginning of our thought process towards sustainability and especially the interactions among the basic elements of sustainability (SD Timeline 2012). Later on, there were many developments in the field of sustainability (Mebratu 1998) since today and the developments are going on and on every day. There were many activities which have fostered the concept and understanding of sustainability after the release of Silent Spring in 1962, such as the initiation of first Earth Day in 1970 (USA), polluter pays principle in 1971, release of work on chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by Rowland and Molina in Nature journal in 1974, release of World Conservation Strategy in 1980, establishment of World Resources Institute in 1982, discovery of Antarctic ozone hole in 1985. This long list also has the release of Brundtland Report—Our Common Future in 1987; this is the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, which has united social, economic, cultural and environmental issues and global solutions together. Very important aspect of this report is that this is the one which has familiarized the term ‘sustainable development’. Post-Brundtland report release, there were many important activities to enhance the sustainability thinking such as establishment of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988, Earth Summit—UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in 1992, First meeting of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development in 1993, adoption of ISO 14001 as a voluntary international standard for corporate environmental management in 1996, release of reporting guidelines by Global Reporting Initiative in 2002, entering of Kyoto Protocol into force in 2005, development of Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer in 2007 (SD Timeline 2012).
What does sustainability really mean?—This is a million dollar question and one cannot get an unanimous answer from everyone if the question is asked among a wide array of people, and the debate on the definition of sustainability still continues. This is due to the matter of fact that sustainability and sustainable development (predecessor of sustainability) mean different to different people and the challenge of defining sustainability has already been noted by many authors already (White 2013). A well-known and very frequently read definition is the ‘development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. This was defined in the World Commission on Environment and Development’s report—Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987). This definition was criticized heavily since its inception, as it is vague and open to interpretation. After this, there are a plenty of definitions one can see for sustainability and sustainable development and they were discussed elsewhere. One can see enormous amount of information from various media (Web, books, reports and research papers) on this.