Austrian cellulosic fibre producer Lenzing Group says it is on track with all of its committed sustainability targets and reaffirmed its pledge to invest more than EUR100m (US$111.5m) in sustainable production technology by 2022.
The firm, whose fibres include Lenzing Ecovero and Tencel lyocell, provided an update on its progress in its 2018 Sustainability Report, in which it noted a 29% reduction in sulphur emissions from viscose production as per its 2014 baseline. Outlined last year, the targets include a goal to improve the group’s sulphur emissions by 50% by 2022.
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As Lenzing’s production site in Indonesia makes by far the largest contribution to the firm’s sulphur emissions, the group has focused its improvement efforts on this site. To achieve the overall target by 2022, Lenzing says it is preparing a “major investment” for an additional carbon disulphide adsorption plant (CAP), with construction work scheduled to begin in 2020.
Other targets include plans to improve Lenzing’s specific wastewater emissions by 20% by 2022, focused on two production sites, namely in Purwakarta, Indonesia and in Grimsby, UK.
At both sites, extensive improvement measures were taken and investment preparations made to bring chemical oxygen demand (COD) values to target by 2022. In Grimsby, Lenzing has begun planning for the construction of a wastewater treatment plant which is expected to come online in 2020. While in Purwakarta, a project was launched in 2018 to improve the wastewater situation at the site, and is scheduled for completion in time to meet the target date of 2022.
In addition, Lenzing is also striving to reduce its specific CO2 emissions, as well as those of its energy providers, dissolving wood pulp suppliers, and the downstream value chain through sustainable innovations.
First steps towards developing concrete CO2 reduction targets were taken in 2018, when it signed the Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action. A science-based target for the Lenzing Group is also being prepared.
Meanwhile, the group says 63% of its “most relevant” suppliers were assessed by EcoVadis by the end of last year as per its goal to assess the sustainability performance of 80% of such vendors by 2022.
