Canadian High Commissioner Benoît-Pierre Laramée yesterday offered his country’s green technology to Bangladesh as many domestic apparel exporters are adopting environment-friendly production in factories.Several garment factories in Bangladesh have so far achieved the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certificate from the US Green Building Council, and the number is increasing, Laramée said.“Definitely, it is a remarkable development and this need to be encouraged.”The council is non-profit organisation that promotes sustainability in buildings design, construction and operation.Laramée has been preparing a guidebook on how to make industrial units environment-friendly, which would be helpful for the green factory owners, he said.Laramée spoke at a seminar on “Greening RMG as CSR in Bangladesh” jointly organised by the Canadian High Commission in Dhaka and Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association, at the association’s office in the capital.Canada is one of the global leaders in the green industries. The country has built its green technology, the output of which stands at more than $11 billion a year.Canada has 700 green companies—most of which are small and medium enterprises, he said.More than 74 percent of Canadian green technology companies are exporters, he said, adding the Canadian green technology companies exported $6 billion worth of goods and services in 2015 to non-US markets.Regarding the improvement of safety in workplace, he said Bangladesh has made a significant progress over the past few years in the sector.“The sector, though, is at the turning point and many reforms have been done to improve safety, security and labour rights just to name a few.”The garment sector has been Bangladesh’s key export industry and the main source of earning foreign currency for the last 25 years, and it has big plans to develop in the future, he said.Garments made in Bangladesh are sourced by many major Canadian brands, and sold all over Canada, he said.Over C$1 billion worth of garment was exported to Canada from Bangladesh last year, Laramée said.Twenty six LEED certified green garment factories are in operation in Bangladesh now, BGMEA President Siddiqur Rahman said.“More than 100 factories have already been registered by the USGBC for going green.”“We have five platinum rated green factories and two of the factories are the highest rated green factories in the whole world,” he said.Rahman also said BGMEA in collaboration with the International Finance Corporation has been running Partnership for Cleaner Textile project, which aims at saving water during production in factories.The association is also working with German international development agency GIZ to implement the “Towards resource efficiency and environmental sustainability” project to improve efficiency of the factories in using water resources and reducing its impact on environment.He also said the garment makers have been working to achieve the target of exporting $50 billion worth of apparel items by 2021, when the country will also celebrate its 50th anniversary of independence.Green garment factories will also help in achieving the target, he said.Hedayetullah Al Mamoon, senior secretary to the commerce ministry, also spoke.
