Effluent and Emissions Strategy

Our long term vision is to cease to use water for dyeing, but there is no technology currently available at industrial level to achieve that goal, so while we continue to use aqueous technology we will have a need to manage our effluent to avoid detrimental impacts on the environment. Since 2011 all of our units have worked to an internal set of effluent standards. These are, in most cases, considerably more stringent than the local requirements. In 2016 we joined the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) association as this was gathering momentum across the textile industry with the goal of creating common standards that would be applicable across the whole industry. In 2019 we adopted the ZDHC standards as our standards instead of the Coats standards. Our target is to have all units meeting the ZDHC standards by 2022, and thanks to the work already done over 60% of our effluent was compliant by the end of 2019. Late in 2019 the ZDHC standard was updated to include sludge testing as well as effluent. During 2020 we will be adding sludge testing to our targets and adjusting plans accordingly. Early results indicate that we will have to undertake additional actions to achieve uniform sludge compliance. Ensuring that all of our units are capable of meeting the required limits is important but it is equally important to ensure that effluent treatment plants are working consistently and to ensure this we installed, during 2018, automated measurement systems in all of our key units. These take measurements of core parameters every 30 seconds and issue automated warnings if the systems begin to approach control units. We also piloted, in 2019, a system that automatically shuts off discharge if a standards breach is likely and will install this across other units in 2020.

As a significant user of energy, Green House Gas (GHG) emissions are a key concern for us. Our activities have been described above in the Energy section; reduction of energy usage and transition of energy sourcing to renewables. Our target, will be determined once we have established our renewable energy target in 2020. In 2019 we achieved a reduction of 3% in GHG emissions intensity and a reduction of 5% in absolute GHG emissions compared to 2018 (excluding NA Crafts from 2018 data and including Gotex and Patrick Yarns).

Zero Liquid Discharge at Ambasamudram

In 2019, we completed the implementation of a very significant Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) system at our largest site in India at Ambasamudram, Tamil Nadu.

This site consumes approximately 3,500 tonnes of water per day, which previously was treated and discharged into the environment. To achieve zero liquid discharge, the existing wastewater treatment plant was modified to incorporate new cutting-edge technology, including ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis and multi-effect evaporators. As a result around 95% of the water entering the treatment plant is returned for reuse in the factory and the remaining 5% is evaporated to leave a solid waste, which is used as a cement additive by a local cement company. The steam required for the new evaporators is generated using biomass, ensuring carbon neutrality for this process.

In February 2019, we successfully closed down our treated wastewater discharge channel in a ceremony witnessed by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.

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¹2018 data has been restated without NA Crafts, with Gotex and Patrick Yarn Mills and with finished goods output basis to help with like for like comparisons to 2019

For more information on our historical performance download our full data disclosure.