On May 13, the media meeting of the 3rd China Eco-friendly Fabric Design Competition (hereinafter referred to as the “Competition”) was held in Beijing. It was announced that the third competition was officially launched. The competition was aimed at collecting eco-friendly materials, eco-friendly technology, eco-friendly dyes and auxiliaries, one or more standard eco-friendly fabrics and eco-friendly certification products for national textile and garment enterprises.
Chen Dapeng, Vice President of China National Textile and Apparel Council, Li Binhong, Director of National Textile Products Development Center, Li Bo, Director of China Textile Information Center, Liu Zhaoxiang, Director of Industrial Cooperation Department of National Textile Products Development Center, Wang Yibing, Standing Committee of Wujiang District Committee of Suzhou City, Secretary of Party and Labor Committee of Wujiang High-tech Zone, Secretary of Shengze Town Party Committee, Secretary of Party and Labor Committee of Eastern Silk Market China, Zhang Jianhua, Vice-Director of Wujiang High-tech Zone Management Committee, Vice-Secretary of Shengze Town Party Committee, Director of Management Committee of Eastern Silk Market China, Wang Jun, Member of Shengze Town Party Committee and Director of Party and Government Office, Hu Weibiao, Director of Management Office of Eastern Silk Market China, Lu Ziping, Vice-Director of Management Office of Eastern Silk Market China and nearly 30 media representatives attended the conference. Li Bo presided over the meeting.
It is reported that “China Eco-friendly Fabric Design Competition” has been held every two years since 2015, and has been successfully held for two consecutive sessions. The competition advocates the concept of eco-textile design based on market demand and popular trends, promotes green materials, green technology and green consumption, and promotes enterprises to establish a responsible R&D system, production system and marketing system, aiming at deepening human-based responsibility, environmental responsibility and market responsibility, enhancing the sustainable development ability of China’s textile industry, and shaping a new image of “responsible” brand, constructing new international competitive advantages. The competition is held in Shengze, links the whole industry, gives full play to the resources and innovation advantages of industry organizations and industrial clusters, and strives to build Shengze into a pioneer textile industry cluster with green ecology as its guide, integrating scientific and technological innovation and fashion creativity.
The competition is hosted by China National Textile and Apparel Council, and co-organizer by China Textile Information Center, National Textile Product Development Center, the Social Responsibility Office of China National Textile and Apparel Council, and Management Committee of Eastern Silk Market China of Wujiang District, Suzhou City, with special support from the People’s Government of Shengze Town, Wujiang District, Jiangsu Province.
Linking the whole industry to promote green development
Chen Dapeng made a speech at the meeting. He said that China National Textile and Apparel Council has been committed to promoting the development of textile products for many years, helping the industry to improve the level of product innovation, and promoting the rapid growth of a large number of outstanding textile and apparel enterprises. Under the new era and new orientation of “science and technology, fashion and green” industry, sustainable development has become the consensus and value of industry development. The competition is the concrete action of practicing the concept of green development. With the advocacy of ecological design concept, the competition focuses on fabric, which is important part of the textile industry. It greatly promotes the development of green products in the upstream fiber industry and downstream terminal industry. He also pointed out that Shengze has a strong textile industry foundation. In recent years, Shengze Government has been making great efforts in technological progress, green development, intelligent manufacturing, green competitiveness and other aspects around the transformation and upgrading, and has achieved remarkable results, and has been in the forefront of the national industrial clusters. The cooperation between Shengze and the competition not only reflects the high consistency of the idea and the direction of Shengze’s industrial development, but also reflects Shengze’s clear attitude and leading consciousness in green development.
“The competition has been held in Shengze for three consecutive sessions, mainly based on Shengze’s complete textile industry chain from fiber, weaving to dyeing and finishing. It is the most important research and development and production base of silk and chemical fabrics in Jiangsu and even the whole country.” Speaking of years of cooperation with Shengze, Li Binhong said in her speech. She also pointed out that the development of eco-textile products by textile enterprises is a systematic project to build product competitiveness, organizational competitiveness and innovative ecosphere. On the one hand, based on the principles of “minimization”, “reuse”, “resource regeneration” and “biodegradability”, we develop products that meet consumer demand in terms of quality, function and style through design creativity, technological innovation and quality management, on the other hand, we actively pay attention to industrial policies, optimize industrial resources, restructure organizational processes and industrial layout, through the establishment of collaborative innovation alliances covering the whole industry chain of fibers, yarns, weaving, dyeing and finishing, ready-made clothing brands, we can achieve fast and efficient integration advantages.
In his speech at the meeting, Wang Yibing described the vigorous development of Shengze textile industry with “three hundred billion yuan”. He introduced that Shengze has formed an industry scale of 100 billion grade industry, 100 billion grade professional market and 100 billion grade enterprises: in 2018, Eastern Silk Market China sales exceeded 120 billion yuan, Hengli Group sales exceeded 370 billion yuan last year, and Shenghong Textile sales exceeded 120 billion yuan. In 2018, the total GDP of the region reached 43.113 billion yuan, ranking the top ten of the country’s thousand strong towns with comprehensive strength for many consecutive years.
Shengze upholds the concept of “ecological priority and green development”, promotes industrial ecological environment governance with high standards, plans the construction of textile circular economy industrial park with high starting point, perfects water control and water protection system in an all-round way, transforms ecological advantages into development advantages, integrates fashion and creativity in textile industry, makes fashionable fabrics docking brand design, lets ecological functions lead the trend and upgrade Shengze textile green competitiveness, set up a fashion vane, shine Shengze textile green business card. He also pointed out that the competition is a big platform for the textile industry to promote the application of new environmental protection technologies and promote the effective transformation of ecological value to market value. In the future, Shengze will work hand in hand with the competition to highlight the trend of China’s eco-functional fabrics, guide the textile industry and product structure to transform to the direction of ecological environmental protection and green design, show the charm of Shengze Manufacturing, Shengze Design and Shengze Fashion, let the concept of green development go deep into the hearts of the people, and let the road of ecological civilization go steadily and far.
Cooperative innovation to promote the development of eco-textiles
Talking about the professional research of China Textile Information Center and National Textile Product Development Center on the development trend of eco-textiles in recent years, Li Binhong said that the first is based on the work of “eco-textiles and apparel market research” and the consumption demand, in-depth research has been carried out in six areas such as the development status quo of eco-textiles, eco-materials and technology, the standards and certification of eco-textiles, the development examples of eco-textiles, the investigation and analysis of eco-textiles consumers and the future development trend of eco-textiles, and a report of nearly 70,000 words on the development status and development trend of eco-textiles has been formed. The second is to integrate the concept of green ecology into the research and release of popular trends, and promote the orderly development and application of eco-textiles in the whole industry. The third is to vigorously carry out the promotion of green technology, through the rapid innovation mode of “integration innovation, collaboration development” of “Fabrics China Trend Forecast & Promotion Alliance”, promote the industrial application and development of a large number of eco-fibers, such as Lenzing Tencel™, Sateri-BV fibers, Eastman Naia™ fibers, and have achieved remarkable social and economic benefits
She also pointed out that today, product development has evolved from the 4P era with product as the core and the 4C era of human centered, to the era of Internet + new retail 4E. Enterprises should take social responsibility as a part of their development strategy, fully understand the design principles and technological paths, material properties and eco-friendly technologies of eco-textiles, actively carry out and participate in the certification of international and domestic standards system of eco-textiles and the formulation of industry standards, carry out integrated innovation and promotion to jointly create green competitiveness.
Shengze: building a green silk road
In recent years, Shengze textile industry, with the joint efforts of the government, industry guidance and excellent enterprises, has taken a sustainable development road in terms of textile industry, ecological economy development, green innovation, and harmonious development of industry and society. It has become the pioneer of ecological civilization construction and set a benchmark for the whole industry.
In an interview with the media, Zhang Jianhua said that Shengze, in the process of promoting green and sustainable development of the industry, has upgraded from three dimensions: innovation-driven, green development and design-led, focusing on high-quality development and transformation and upgrading. In the aspect of innovation drive, we will further strengthen product innovation by establishing and improving innovation platforms such as Suzhou CTES Research Institute of Fabric Industry, Functional Fiber Manufacturing Innovation Center and Textile Industry Intelligent Manufacturing Collaboration Innovation Center. In terms of green development, according to the ecological protection planning requirements of the Yangtze River Economic Zone issued by the state, through the three-year plan of eliminating 30% low-end and low-efficiency water-jet looms, the investment of 760 million yuan in reclaimed water reuse project and the five-year construction plan of textile circular economy industrial park, Shengze has achieved the phased goals of eliminating nearly 30,000 water-jet looms, realizing 70% reclaimed water reuse and integrating dyeing and finishing factories into the park. In the aspect of design-led, we will promote the integration and development of industry, market and city through the creative design of competition platform such as “China Eco-friendly Fabric Design Competition”.
Referring to the promotion of the construction of “Belt and Road”, Zhang Jianhua said that as a practitioner of the inheritance and development of silk culture, Shengze will strengthen the three aspects of industrial chain, value chain and innovation chain. Through combing and opening up the entire industrial chain of silk source, industry, commerce and so on, we should constantly enhance the value chain, promote silk culture and promote the creative design of silk. We should give full play to the guiding role of Eastern Silk Market China. Through introducing and going out, we will carry out different forms and different levels of docking with the countries along the “Belt and Road”, and participate in global competition to help private enterprises to develop market. It is understood that in 2018, Eastern Silk Market China organized more than 400 enterprises to participate in more than 20 international exhibitions in Paris, New York, Munich, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Brazil, Vietnam, and organized a series of docking exchanges such as Shengze Fabric Promotion activity.
“The competition has set up the best eco-material application award, the best eco-technology application award, the best eco-product market application award. The award-winning enterprises will be invited to attend the award ceremony of the Third China Eco-friendly Fabric Design Competition in 2019 and the “Silk City Fashion” - Shengze Award-winning enterprise product fashion show held at Beijing China Fashion Week. The award-winning products will also be displayed and promoted on the “China Fashion Fabric” booth of the Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics in September, and the “China Fashion Fabric” booth of the 6th Jiangsu (Shengze) Textile Expo in October, as well as on the related professional exhibitions in the domestic textile industry. In addition, at the Shengze Textile Expo in October, excellent brand designers from all over the country will be convened to set up static exhibition of original design ready-made clothes & emerging design showroom, to promote seamless docking between Shengze fabric enterprises and brand designers. Liu Zhaoxiang said in the introduction of the event.
With the increasing influence and brand awareness of the industry, the competition has become a benchmarking event in the field of ecological and environmental protection and an important window for Shengze industry to spread green. A number of green development enterprises and green eco-products emerged in two consecutive sessions, which brought new examples and models for reference and promotion to the industry, reflected the transformation and development of China’s textile industry in the new era, the thinking and growth of enterprises, ecological values and prospects, and also conveyed Shengze’s strategic positioning and courage for high-quality development of green textiles to the outside world. The competition contributes to Shengze’s ecological environment protection, product structure optimization, industrial wisdom transformation and sustainable development. It is believed that more textile enterprises and industrial clusters will be promoted and further developed on the road of green development and sustainable development.