Sustainability initiative makes China debut in Shanghai
Event organiser Messe Frankfurt brought a new sustainability concept, Econogy, to China for the first time at the autumn edition of Intertextile Shanghai.
It has coined the word by combining ecology and economy, with its vice-president for textile industry events, Olaf Schmidt, explaining that for a product to be sustainable it has to have a good business case behind it.
He said Messe Frankfurt had been inviting exhibitors to highlight sustainable elements of their collections at its shows since 2008, but that the events company now wanted to bring this range of initiatives under one umbrella.
Mr Schmidt (pictured) explained that exhibiting companies are able to submit an application to have yarns and fabrics assessed for inclusion in the Econogy programme, with an independent judging panel deciding which products qualify. If successful, exhibitors are able to display a new logo for the initiative on their stands.
Messe Frankfurt launched the programme at Heimtextil in January this year and followed this up at Texworld in Paris and New York. Its inclusion at Intertextile Shanghai marked its debut in China.
“We cannot make the textile industry more sustainable,” Mr Schmidt added. “It is for the industry to do that. But we can give the industry a platform for making its advances in sustainability more visible.”
