Ananta Group
Apparel Manufacturer in Bangladesh.
A commitment to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), resulted in Ananta’s recognition as a LEED GOLD CERTIFIED factory by the U.S. Green Building Council (USBGC) in 2017. The most widely used green building rating system in the world, LEED provides a framework for healthy, highly efficient, and cost-saving green buildings designed to ensure productivity, comfort, and wellbeing for its occupants. We are proud to have obtained this certification, a globally recognized symbol of sustainability achievement.
Our sustainability practices are assessed by Higg Index FEM and verified by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), its approved impartial third-party gatekeeper. We do this each year to ensure our scores accurately reflect our efforts as well as help identify limitations and areas of opportunity. Last year, Ananta scored 68% for the sustainable practices it has implemented. This score, considered a reputable sustainability score by our buyers, qualifies us for a Platinum score in H&M’s scoring system.
- Planting Trees in Communities and on School Premises
- Hazardous Waste Management Systems
- Rainwater Harvesting Systems
- Waste Water Recycling Systems
- Replacing Normal Taps with Push Taps
- Installing Meters to Track Every Process Requiring Water Consumption
- Installing Meters to Track All Processes Requiring Energy Consumption
When it comes to our products, we place a priority on the sourcing of sustainable cotton. Ananta is recognized as a certified manufacturer for Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), Organic Cotton Standard (OCS), Internal Control System (ICS), and Recycled Claim Standard (RCS). These certifications reflect our strong commitment to maintaining cotton standards that promote growing practices that not only sustain necessary levels of production, but also keep environmental impact to a minimum.
We consider everything that goes into and comes out of the wash with our processes. This includes water, energy, and chemical conservation. Much of our strides in sustainability and pollution reduction are made possible by technology. We use Jeanologia machines and technologies such as Ozone and Laser, both alternatives of PP spray, and e-Flow which uses nanobubbles to minimize water use. Our wash machines operate with low-liquor ratio at unprecedented levels, and we skip unnecessary wash process. This helps save water and reduces our chemical ETP load, too.
Ozone Machine
Generates ozone to treat garments and requires 60% less water, decreasing chemical use and reducing pollution.
Tonello Machine
Innovative UP patented technology reduces the liquor ratio to unparalleled levels, saving water and energy, making water filling and draining faster.
Laser Machine
Eliminates use of hazardous PP spray and other processes like whiskering and hand brushing, reducing water, chemical, and energy use.
E-Flow
Nanobubbles of air carry and transmit the correct amount of chemicals into a garment using minimal water quantities and no discharge.
As the only resource that no one can import, every drop of water is highly valued at Ananta. We practice water conservation in a variety of ways – rainwater harvesting, reusing generator hot water, wastewater recycling, push taps, metered water consumption tracking, low-liquor ratio washing, and by eliminating unnecessary wash process whenever possible. Plus, we participate in Sweden Textile Water Initiative (STWI) and PaCT. Our bio-chemical wastewater treatment plant has its own testing lab facility. This ensures the only water discharged into the environment falls within national parameters and the ZDHC Wastewater Guidelines (V 1.1).
Energy use requires more natural resources and leads to increased air emissions. This concern drives us to keep sustainability at the forefront of our energy conservation efforts. We monitor our energy usage closely so we can save it. Every one of our processes that utilizes energy is metered for tracking its use. We also practice energy conservation in our facilities, using recovered steam condensation, solar power, boiler economizers, T8 lights, inverters in compressors and motors, trigger nozzles for compressed air, servomotors, energy-efficient machines, and more. We are also involved with the Sweden Textile Water Initiative (STWI) and PaCT.
Ananta strictly prohibits hazardous chemicals on any of its premises. Our monitoring system uses ZDHC Manufacturing Restricted Substances (MRSL) List (V.2) and the Restricted Substances List for Finished Products (RSL) to identify and avoid hazardous chemicals. We believe in green chemistry, and we choose green certificate chemicals or those with ZDHC MRSL Level 1-3 conformance. This enables our use of 100% positive chemistry in H&M and Levi’s products. Our purchases of compliant chemicals are confirmed through two online chemical screening platforms – CleanChain and BVE3.
The onsite ETP at Ananta Apparels Ltd. has a 100 m3/h capacity. It employs several physical, chemical, and biological treatment barriers for treating wastewater. Some of these include an automatic screening chamber, equalization tank, flash mixing tank, flocculation tank, primary clarifier, aeration tank, secondary clarifier, post aeration tank, sludge thickening tank, and screw press machine for dewatering sludge. A multi-grade sand filter (MGF) and activated carbon filter (ACF) also help ensure wastewater has been treated properly before being discharged into the environment. On average, 30% of the water used in Ananta Apparels Ltd. production processes is recycled through its zero-liquid discharge (ZLD) plan.
Ananta’s factories use highly efficient gas generators as well as steam boilers in their daily operations. The boilers, manufactured by world-class brands and operate at efficiency levels close to 95%. Compressors and dryer machines equipped with variable frequency drive (VFD) technology also contribute to energy efficiency, supplying the best quality compressed air for production processes. We not only equip our factories with this type of high-efficiency equipment for processing our products, but we also do it for those who produce products for Ananta. Our production floors feature top-tier ventilation systems and evaporative coolers to supply workers with fresh, cool air while they work.
Discussions involving the establishment of a 150-acre integrated textile and apparel industrial park by 2022 are under way. Once developed, the park would house key components of the textile value chain (TVC), including spinning, weaving, knitting, processing, and garment manufacturing.
Our continued hazardous waste concerns have led us to join Geocycle Bangladesh in their efforts to create a zero-waste future. Current plans are for Lafarge Holcim to use cement kiln technology (co-processing) to treat Ananta’s hazardous and non-hazardous waste in a sustainable manner that ensures regulatory compliance.
Investing in our employees’ skills contributes to our development and growth as a company and, equally important, to our employees’ personal and professional development. To this end, we conduct various trainings and seminars at all our sites throughout the year, in accordance with a pre-set annual training program.
We employ people from around the world, and we are proud to be a multicultural global company with such a highly diverse employee community. Mutual respect and coexistence are very important to us, both within the Ananta family and among the communities in which we work. We believe employee diversity is advantageous and embrace the wide variety of cultures, beliefs, religions, and opinions which coexist at our different sites.
Deeply conscious of the needs of the communities we operate in, we hope to create strong goodwill among Ananta and its many neighbors around the world.
Some of our social initiatives include:
- Training center for under privileged minorities. Educational opportunities for family members and children.
- On-site medical facilities and day care centers. Cultural club with free training and bi-annual shows.
- Monthly blood collection drives and donation campaigns with employees.
- Free, bi-annual eye camps for examination and treatment.
- Disaster rescue and aid for victims of annual floods and cyclones.
