Myanmar’s readymade garment industry is currently tiny but it earned 917 million dollars in 2012, up from 770 million dollars in 2011. What’s more, exports are now projected to rise fast, following the recent lifting of sanctions that had held back the country’s textile and garment industry. A report written by co-author Maximilian Martin called ‘Creating Sustainable Apparel Value Chains’ focuses on the dilemma faced by Myanmar today.
The report provides a response in the context of a number of trends that are changing value creation in the industry, such as the rise of fast fashion, the impact of the emerging circular economy, and the rise of the Asian market. It also identifies a number of key levers that could make a disproportionately positive contribution catalyzing industry transformation in the process. These include recognizing that competitiveness and social and environmental performance are neither mutually exclusive nor a zero-sum game, chemicals are the 800-pound gorilla of worker health and safety—and redesigning of production processes allows for considerable savings, investing can be used to make critically needed upgrades to industry infrastructure and so on.
The report also emphasizes that to achieve a sustainable future for the industry, industry can and needs to move in scale. In Myanmar, investment will be key to making this shift happen. Using (impact) investing to improve manufacturing by reducing chemicals, energy and water inputs could provide the economic basis, report points out.
