Sri Lanka: The next success story Part II

Session 3: Design Technology, Market Speed and Sri Lanka’s Value Add

University College Falmouth Head of Department of Design Patrick Gottelier addressing the topic of ‘Design Technology, Market Speed and Sri Lanka’s Value Add’ stated that for the country to move forward, design education, a home-grown talent of Sri Lanka, must be augmented.  

From left: MAS Holdings Chairman Mahesh Amalean, AOD Founder and Managing Director Linda Speldewinde, Timex Group Managing Director Arshad Sattar and Hellmann Worldwide Vice President Transpacific Sales Asia Regional Headquarters Paul Goldsbrough

“I have watched what’s been happening at SLDF for the past three years. The growth in design education in Sri Lanka is great. It is extraordinary what you have done for the image, value addition, influence and impact and in contributing to the industry,” he said.

“What we have done in UK is work hard to draw the industry to work with our students. AOD is surrounded by a very vibrant garment industry. What I want to tell the CEOs is that you should go in and listen to what the students are talking about, what motivates them, worries them and where they see the future going,” Gottelier said.

Drawing an example from Apple and the coordination between Steve Jobs and the design team, he stated that CEOs should work along with designers to create unique products and propositions.

Lessons from the UK

Gottelier stated that the students in UK were asked to hand in a business plan with their final report. The key areas of focus in the majority have been the following:

• Up-cycling: “For girls and boys who are 18/19 now, when they graduate they become influences in design and taste. Fashion does that; fashion has the ability to influence a wide range of opinions. So up-cycling is very important to them.”
• Durability: “Students don’t look just for technical qualities of the products, but stylistic properties now.”
• e-commerce: “Many are framing the plan around e-commerce. They understand this and social networks very well. As an industry we must be aware of what kids are up to these days and how they conduct themselves.”

“The industry depends on everything going faster and faster. If anyone wants to slow down, we must take it seriously and take a double look,” he added.

Qualities to live by

“Your relationship with academy is the ability to connect to the industry and institutions and industries around the world. That is your creative hub; that is the source of your intellectual properties in the future,” he said.

From left: Brandix CEO Ashroff Omar, Hirdaramani Group Director Rakhil Hirdaramani, M&S Head of Technology Lingerie and Childrenswear Paschal Little, GIT NY Director Sass Brown and Ted Baker Sustainability Manager Green Guardian Holly Brown

He warned Sri Lanka to not do what the English did, which was “create fantastic institutions, create fantastic designers and then let go work for the competition. Make sure you keep them here.”

He also commended the industry for the much popular ‘Garments without Guilt’ programme. Noting that the programme has been extraordinary, Gottelier acknowledged that students had been writing in their business plans that they want to make their collections in Sri Lanka ethically.

“The message is getting out there. As an industry, you have to hold fast to that line. You are communicating well, but the next stage is to communicate it to the customers,” he said.

“You need to get that message so that they want to buy clothes that have the ‘Made in Sri Lanka’ tab. They would buy it fundamentally because they are designed well and the country’s reputation of being ‘ethical’ will give you a significant differentiation.”

Companies are now moving into promoting what is named as ‘emotional buying’. “More companies are working hard to create real genuine emotional bonds.”

The ability Sri Lanka has is to build on design skills, craftsmanship and ethical sounds and that would give a strong market.

Session four: An Update on Sri Lanka’s Global Leadership in Sustainability

“On the global landscape front, as far as carbon footprint is concerned, the 2008 figures show that Sri Lanka’s footprint is only 0.04% of the total carbon emissions in the whole world. We are ranked 94. From a per capita point of view, we are ranked 169 out of 200,” Director of Brandix Ajith Johnpillai pointed out.

The question then is, why green; why bother?

Answering the question, Johnpillai said: “Sri Lanka is a beautiful country with lots of national treasures and a deeply-rooted culture and we want to preserve this. We want to be more competitive globally while being sustainable. We believe this gives us the edge to be the most sought-after destination in Asia.”

Giving insights into the industry, he noted that M&S was a pioneer in sustainability and technical manufacture and introduced the concept in 2007.

“It has the Plan A initiative covering the aspects of climate change, reducing waste, sustainable raw material usage, ethical trading and helping customers lead healthier lifestyles.” He stated that GAP, Tesco, Next and H&M have followed similar initiatives.

M&S story – The green game

“M&S purchases from 30 countries. It makes direct purchases annually worth 1.7 billion pounds, approximately US$ 3.5-4 billion. That’s the landscape of M&S; it purchases 32% from China, 20% Sri Lanka and 12% from Bangladesh. M&S brought in a pledge recently saying that in 2015, 50% of its products will be from a Plan A attributed factory; in 2020, 100% of its products will be from plan A products,” Johnpillai said.

“With M&S having being in Sri Lanka for the past 25 years, we have been involved in many projects here. The infamous eco factory was a huge learning experience for us involved,” M&S Head of Technology Lingerie and Childrenswear Paschal Little said. “Recently with the MAS Group we developed the world’s first carbon neutral bra.”

Such projects have demonstrated the capacity for the Sri Lankan industry to innovate and take the global initiative. “When we started talking of eco factories, that was when the energy cost was rising on a YoY basis like 30%,” he said.

Brandix Lanka

“We are leaders in labelling in Sri Lanka. We already have green labels, carbon neutral labels, low carbon green labels and recently one of our factories was the first certified under ISDO 50,001 national energy standard,” Johnpillai said.  “There is a lot going for us in Sri Lanka.”

On achievements from Brandix, he stated that the company operates on three principles – air, water and earth. In 2008 the group made a pledge to reduce its carbon footprint by 30% by the end of next year.

“To do that we had to get a carbon inventory of greenhouse gases and set goals on how we should achieve that.” On water, the pledge was to reduce the water footprint by 235 litres per day; initially the waste line was over 65, he said.

Brandix CEO Ashroff Omar presented two schools of thought: “Why should Sri Lankans be bothered about going into these green initiatives, spending so much money, energy and time when we are not polluting the earth, we are at 0.6 per capita emission and 169 out of 200 countries? It goes well with many people. Why bother when we are way down the list and we can relax for another 10 to 15 years before we get excited on green initiatives?” Omar said.

The other school of thought is Sri Lanka being a good global citizen, save in some instances since independence. “When you look at market access, even the recent legislation of brand protection, earlier when there was management of quota we also have been democratic right through,” he said. “Traditional Sri Lanka has been a great global citizen and therefore in this field we can leapfrog and try to be best at green initiatives.”

It is not just about being good hearted and noble, he admitted, “but the important part is that you have to be sustainable and of course make a lot of money on that term.”

“We are much focused not to get hung up on some sort of a do-gooder mentality,” he added, “not that it’s bad, but make sure it’s commercially viable as well.” His request is for retailers to not look at everyone through the lens of price.

“I think we believe that in the long term, a green factory should be much cheaper than a non-green factory and if you’re not green, you might not be able to survive.” In the meantime it might make sense if the retailer also differentiated between green and non-green products.

 Pix by Upul Abayasekara