BASF Trains Egyptian Textile Employees at UN Workshop

Asian Textile Business, Apr 2006

BASF is supporting the UN organization UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization) and the Egypt National Cleaner Production Center to make the Egyptian textile industry more sustainable and thus more competitive. At a workshop in Cairo lasting several days, textile finishers and processors learn how to apply BASF's eco-efficiency analysis. This analytical tool is intended to help Egyptian textile manufacturers meet the demands of the global market, while keeping the environmental impact to a minimum.

The workshop also offers the participants the opportunity to establish contacts with European brand manufacturers and dealers. Those attending the workshop include the OTTO Group with its own inspection institute Hansecontrol. The company cooperates closely with BASF in the field of sustainable textile production.

"At OTTOAA we place particular value on offering environmentally friendly and socially responsible products," explained HansG_nter Just, Senior Consultant of the OTTO Group. "Our suppliers around the world comply with uniform environmental and social standards. To make sure these guidelines are fulfilled, we have so far trained manufacturers throughout the entire textile value-adding chain together with the industry in 17 countries."

As a partner of the textile industry and many brand manufacturers, BASF offers its know-how on sustainable business management at the workshop, and shows how the eco-efficiency analysis tool can be put to valuable use. The purpose of the analysis is to harmonize economy and ecology. Both the costs and the environmental impact of products, processes or entire system solutions can be evaluated. BASF provides a special software program for this purpose. With this "eco-efficiency manager", smalland medium-sized companies can also make their working processes more economical and environmentally friendly.

"In this project partnership, we are promoting the textile industry in Egypt, while simultaneously contributing to sustainable development," commented Dr. Brigitte Dittrich-Krämer from the BASF Sustainability Center. "BASF's commitment to this project exemplifies how the company is actively participating in the United Nations Global Compact initiative."

The project partnership among BASF, UNIDO and the UN environmental organization UNEP was initiated in 2002. A joint workshop was held in Morocco in December 2004. This cooperation resulted in the development of new methods and products, such as the eco-efficiency manager.