On the occasion of World Environment Day 2020, Coimbatore-based Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF) has initiated a project ‘India for SURE’ with the concept of India as a Stable, sUstainable, Reliable, Ethical partner for sourcing fashion goods. While sustainability is at the core of the project, Tamil Nadu textile sector will serve as the base.

ITF represents around 500 textile manufacturing companies covering the entire value chain of Tamil Nadu textile industry including integrated, standalone spinning, weaving, processing, home textiles and apparel companies.

“With this process of establishing our TN textile sector as the most sustainable in the textile community, which is reinforced with authentic data, it will create a good visibility for our sector in the international community and also create a trust in the ‘SURE’ model,” ITF convenor Prabhu Dhamodharan said in a press release.

“With our members across the entire value chain, we have been able to create a collective interest in this brand positioning initiative and create a road-map to facilitate a Sustainability Accord – a first of its kind cluster level commitment for sustainability.

“As a first step, we are developing a Sustainability Blueprint with the objective of highlighting priority sustainability target areas and moving with a high-level direction to achieve the targets. The Blueprint will also showcase the achievements and the strengths of our member companies in sustainability,” Dhamodharan added.

ITF has also launched today a ‘data collection’ initiative to consolidate the individual excellence of its member companies into numbers that will help in quantifying the strengths in sustainability.

“We wholeheartedly align with our Prime Minister’s vision and recent announcement to focus on ‘Made in India’ products that are made for the world. We are sure that post COVID-19, India will emerge as the preferred global source of apparel and textile products. We need to shift our focus more towards our areas of excellence and attract the attention of our stakeholders towards it. We believe that sustainability will be the key to achieve it,” the release said.