Three days were allotted by PUMA’s Stefan Seidel and Ray Niu, ASSIST’s Aru David and Jordan Ng, and 46 representatives from 24 factories for the SAVE Project Executive Forum at the Winner Way Hotel in Dong Guan, China.
From May 25 to 27, participants received training on environmental laws and regulations, attended the sharing forum, and listened to speeches delivered by HKPC representatives on the best practices they have gained. Moreover, PUMA’s Team Head of Environmental Affairs spoke regarding the Sustainability Strategy of PUMA whereas; Mr. Aru updated the progress of SAVE project within the four target manufacturing locations: China, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Indonesia.
The sharing forum proved to be one of the most significant parts of the event since it was able to gather the factories together and create an open talk environment for them to discuss about how to use the resources effectively. China is very important for the SAVE project as most of the participating factories are situated in China – 17 in South and 8 in North. The event concluded that there should be a quarterly forum until the project closing by early of 2016.
SAVE (Sustainable Action & Vision for a better Environment) is a Public Private Partnership (PPP) project co-financed by DEG and PUMA which started early 2013. The primary purpose of SAVE is to create more environmentally friendly production sites across the footwear, apparel and accessory supply chain in developing countries of Asia.
SAVE has an ultimate goal of reducing their energy, water, waste and greenhouse gas emissions by 25% compared to a 2011 baseline. Ultimately, SAVE will contribute towards achieving a green economy and sustainable industrial development through local capacity building, technical assistance and the establishment of two project support offices which will operate beyond the project duration.
