Swedish brands Indiska, KappAhl and Lindex in partnership with more than 40 Indian textile and garment suppliers have decided to reduce environmental impact and improve capacity of supply chains through a unique project for cleaner production. The new project has saved 284 million liters of water and 402 tons of chemicals annually and is now being scaled up to include several Indian states and four other countries in the world. It involves more than 120 suppliers globally.

A training project set up by India-based Sustainable Water Resources (SWAR), a cooperation between the Swedish brands Indiska, KappAhl and Lindex and their Indian suppliers, along with the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), Sida and India-based consultant cKinetics claims to have reduced the environmental impact of textile supply chains in India through improved resource efficiency.

SWAR was co-financed by brands and Sida, in a public–private partnership that linked business and international development goals. More than 40 factories participated in the project. The factories were also able to save on an average 3 per cent of their energy cost and 3 per cent of their operational costs. The project trained more than 13,000 factory workers and managers in the past two years.