There Are Environmental Violations In The Supply Chain Of Large Foreign Clothing Brands In China

The sewage discharged by a textile factory foams on the Yangtze River

In recent years, the popular alkali decrement and island silk process COD The content is as high as tens of thousands of mg/l. These new additives are very complex in technical treatment, and no particularly effective targeted pollution treatment technology has been developed at present.

"The textile industry produces nearly 2.5 billion tons of wastewater and other pollutants every year. Whether from the chemical oxygen demand or ammonia nitrogen and other major pollutants, the textile industry is one of the largest sources of pollution in China at present." Ma Jun, director of the Public Environment Research Center, told reporters recently.

On April 9, five domestic environmental protection organizations, including the Public Environment Research Center, released a survey report on "Green Selection of Textile Brand Supply Chain Pollution" in Beijing, pointing out that a number of large Brand clothing Retailers in China Supply chain Serious Environmental violations Some enterprises have private concealed pipes, direct sewage discharge, abnormal use of sewage treatment facilities and other phenomena, which have caused pollution to China's water environment.

On March 22, 26 and 29, 2012, the report issuer sent the survey data to Levi's, Adidas CK、 48 brand enterprises, including Armani and Youngor, have asked about environmental violations in the supply chain. As of mid April, 16 enterprises have replied.

New processes emerge, and pollution treatment cannot keep up

In recent years, the total amount of textile industry wastewater discharge and its proportion in the national wastewater discharge have shown a straight upward trend. As the upstream of the brand clothing supply chain, the textile industry faces structural contradictions in the pollution situation, mainly in the fields of printing, dyeing and finishing. According to the above research report, at present, the discharge of dyeing and finishing wastewater accounts for 80% of the total discharge of the textile industry. The total amount of dyeing and finishing wastewater discharged from Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong, Guangdong and Fujian provinces accounts for about 90% of the total amount of dyeing and finishing wastewater in China.

"In recent years, the more prominent contradiction is the continuous development and application of new processes, new raw materials and new dyes, which makes the waste water pollutants discharged in the production process more and more complex and makes the treatment more difficult." As the author of the research report, Ma Jun was deeply impressed by the pollution caused by new processes in the textile industry: "For example, the popular alkali reduction and island silk processes in recent years, the COD content in wastewater (an important indicator of water pollution degree, the more the value, the lighter the pollution degree) is as high as tens of thousands of mg/l. These new auxiliaries are very complex in technical treatment, and no particularly effective targeted pollution treatment technology has been developed yet. After the treatment of printing and dyeing wastewater, sludge disposal is also an unsolved national problem. "

At present, the COD discharge concentration of printing and dyeing wastewater in areas where printing and dyeing enterprises are concentrated in Jiangsu and Zhejiang has increased from less than 1000 mg/l to 2000 mg/l. At present, the output of polyester is the largest in China's fiber production, and the alkali decrement process has become an important link in the production of polyester. The terephthalic acid produced by the alkali decrement process is difficult to be treated by biochemical or physicochemical methods, which is one of the main reasons why the relevant environmental indicators in the areas of Zhejiang and Jiangsu alkali decrement process cluster cannot meet the standard stably.

If the wastewater is directly discharged without meeting the COD discharge standard, the decomposition of organic components in the wastewater will consume oxygen in the water, causing mass death of fish and shrimp, and seriously damaging the water body, sediment and its ecosystem.

In fact, the problem of sewage treatment caused by the rapid development of the printing and dyeing industry has received public attention since about 2004. At that time, the national environmental authority once commented that textile dyeing and finishing is a good industry after China's accession to the WTO. In recent years, it has seen double-digit growth (some more than 30%), and the discharge of wastewater and various pollutants has also increased year on year. Due to the concentration of printing and dyeing and the unstable rate of reaching the standard, there is still a gap between the actual total amount of sewage discharge and the environmental capacity. In recent years, the elimination of outdated, high energy consumption and poor performance production equipment and the research and development of new and high technologies have been considered as a solution to environmental problems.

"However, the pollution treatment technology of the textile industry has not been improved with the new process, not because of the lack of technology research and development, but because the new technology has been developed but no one has used it." Ma Jun pointed out that the pollution treatment cannot keep up, not only because of a technical or financial problem, but first because the enterprise lacks the power to control pollution.

1.2 million yuan is disbursed for one year, which is assumed as environmental penalty

Although the government has increasingly strict environmental protection requirements for the textile industry, local environmental protection departments are difficult to ensure that factories and enterprises really implement these national standards. Weak law enforcement and difficult environmental litigation lead to low illegal costs; The price of water resources has been artificially lowered, resulting in no incentive for enterprises to use water efficiently and circularly.

"The textile industry has a large amount of wastewater discharge, even if it reaches the standard, it will also cause pressure on the environment, not to mention that many textile enterprises can not achieve stable standard discharge in actual operation." Li Li, director of Huanyou Science and Technology Research Center, told reporters.

The Public Environment Research Center has released the "China Water Pollution Map Database" since 2006. In the database, as of February 20, 2012, more than 6000 textile enterprises have recorded violations and excessive emissions, including: private concealed pipes, untreated direct discharge of pollutants, abnormal use of sewage treatment facilities, excessive and excessive emissions of pollutants Unauthorized use of sealed production facilities, being listed for supervision due to prominent environmental problems, etc.

"Based on the 'China Water Pollution Map Database', this research took half a year. First, through massive search, and then analysis of financial reports and listing reports of listed enterprises, we arranged the supply chain of many brands of clothing, found out who supplies to whom in each link, and established the relationship between textile suppliers and brand clothing." Wang Jingjing, deputy director of the Public Environment Research Center, told the reporter that a number of textile enterprises that exceeded the standards and regulations were located in the upstream of the supply chain of large international and domestic brand clothing, completely outside the scope of environmental management of brand clothing enterprises.

Dongguan Fu'an Textile Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Futian Industrial Group, is one of the world's largest textile suppliers. This enterprise and Gap Tommy Hilfiger、Reebok、 Nike and other well-known brands have maintained close cooperation for a long time. "It is difficult to understand the environmental violations of such a listed company with outstanding reputation in the industry". Ma Jun said that in 2006, the factory set up two private pipelines to discharge secretly. "One iron concealed pipe with a diameter of 25 cm, controlled by two concealed valves, directly discharged more than 20000 tons of untreated and substandard printing and dyeing wastewater every day. At that time, at the company's sewage outlet located in the Maozhou River, the boundary river between Dongguan and Shenzhen, dark red sewage marked a clear pollution zone on the river surface. The company was fined 217000 yuan. But for such an enterprise with an annual output value of several billion yuan, such a fine can only play a limited role. "

Ma Jun said that there were extreme cases in the survey. An enterprise estimated that the monthly fine would not exceed 100000 yuan, and it simply disbursed 1.2 million yuan in the annual budget, which was assumed to be an environmental fine. "The attitude of enterprises is that punishment is fine. Some large textile enterprises may spend more than 100000 yuan a day on wastewater treatment, and the illegal cost is seriously lower than the law-abiding cost."

It is not simply a "blacklist"

Although some famous brand clothing suppliers have many environmental violations, most brand clothing companies do not regard supervision of the upstream supply chain as their responsibility.

During the investigation, the Public Environment Research Center found that some of ZARA's suspected suppliers had environmental violations, including complaints from local people, direct discharge of some production wastewater without treatment, and casualties caused by the accident of cleaning the wastewater pool. After the research team sent a reminder letter about its suspected supplier's environmental violations in China, the reply from ZARA wrote: "It's a pity that we can't answer the responses from schools, universities, professionals and other individuals to our business model."

"The problems of these suspected suppliers of ZARA are real, and ZARA, as one of the largest fashion retail companies in the world, said publicly on its official website, 'Sincerely establish contacts with a wide range of stakeholders and society; We should continue to have dialogue with the aforementioned stakeholders and social organizations, and the overall business activities should be transparent. 'We believe that ZARA violates its public commitment. " Ma Jun said.

Unlike ZARA, Nike H&M、 After receiving the prompt letter from the environmental protection organization, brand enterprises such as Levi's and Adidas respectively said that they had begun to conduct in-depth research on supplier violations and considered establishing a supplier retrieval system.

In its reply, Nike said: "Nike will require its supply chain partners in China to pay attention to their own environmental behavior and, if necessary, to publish rectification plans."

Adidas replied: "If the supplier violates laws, including environmental and pollution control regulations, we require the supplier to take corrective measures. If the violation cannot be rectified, we will write a warning letter to follow up, which (in the worst case) may lead to the termination of the business relationship."

Li Li said that the purpose of this survey is not simply to list a "blacklist" of textile enterprises' pollution discharge, but to hope brand clothing enterprises to use public information to actively and effectively identify supply chain violations, establish a regular retrieval mechanism, and promote their suppliers to make adjustments and improve information disclosure.

"When environmental management is gradually advanced along the supply chain to the production of raw materials, brand enterprises will be able to truly achieve pollution control over the life cycle of textile products. The chain reaction triggered by this will provide a strong impetus for pollution control in China," said Li Li.