Tirupur has introduced a GreenCo rating system for apparel units. They are validated with bronze, silver, gold and platinum certificates based on their performance in parameters such as effective use of energy, water conservation, waste minimization and reuse, and installation of renewable energy. Ratings are done by giving more weightage to the performances in utilization of energy and resources instead of the system adopted in the units, which should renew the certificate every three years.

Since the introduction of the system, five industrial units in the Tirupur apparel cluster have obtained them. Last year, two units got them while three others including two knitwear exporters and a dyeing unit obtained them this year. These three apparel units have obtained a GreenCo rating certification given by the Confederation of Indian Industry this year in Tirupur.

However in the Tirupur cluster 90 per cent are micro, small and medium units. They rarely audit the energy and resources used. So Tirupur has also launched an audit program. This program will help the industry to eliminate audit fatigue, avoid duplication and reduce the number of social and labor audits by replacing current proprietary assessment tools, increase the opportunity for greater comparability of social and labor data and redeploy resources to improvement actions.