ABSTRACT
The necessity of adapting to sustainable processing has become inevitable given the alarming situation of environmental degradation, GHG emissions, depletion of nonrenewable resources, etc. It is the responsibility of our generation to arrest this environment degradation as well as to take care of the interests of all the stake holders through social compliance. Time and again however, it has been shown that the business as usual practices are continued simply for making profits, totally disregarding people and planet. Textile processing operations consumes enormous amount of water, energy as well dyes and chemicals, many a times they are hazardous. Using latest technologies the inputs of utilities including water are to be optimised and least amount of dyes and chemicals should be let into the effluent. In fact everywhere more and more zero liquid discharge operations are demanded, which itself poses challenges to the developing countries where such manufacture and processing is done in large quantities. Sustainability has basically three components, profitability, people and planet (environment) and it is very important that there has to be ethical commitment of the management of the companies to see that social and environmental compliance is indeed followed in the letter and spirit. How honestly the legislated laws are implemented and to what extent individual units consider their social responsibility, coupled with corruption free governance can indeed boost sustainable textile processing. The consumers should also be ready to pay the premium for such materials, as it is in the interest of all. Ethics thus becomes at the core of sustainability issues; the companies who are ethically committed, do not find something challenging to walk this path. But majority of the Units, do find it challenging, and their mind set has to change and thus introspection and commitment to ethics have no substitute. It is here, belief systems of the individuals also matters in shaping their behavior as conscious global citizen.
