Sustainability implications of remanufacturing textiles in India

Abstract

With the increasingly unsustainable nature of industrialized and industrializing nations, new industrial processes are being explored to determine a more sustainable pathway for countries looking to boost their manufacturing presence and competitiveness. In this thesis, we present a "proactive" policy framework for India's sustainable development via the introduction of remanufacturing, at-scale, for India's textile industry using qualitative trade-off analysis that "co-optimizes" for tripartite (international, national, and sub-national) governmental-level and firm-level policies to achieve improvements within the 3 Pillars of Sustainability: namely Economic, Environmental, and Employment Sustainability. The research begins with an analysis of India's sustainable development history, its current status, and its goals for future sustainable development.

The current status and history of the Indian textile industry, and its relevant policies, were subsequently studied, analyzed, and described in detail. The thesis then introduces and analyzes the specific industrial strategy of "remanufacturing" that has the potential to be a sustainable industrial opportunity for India's textile sector. The major process, technological, environmental and occupational, sociopolitical, and economic requirements for and challenges involved in adopting textile remanufacturing at-scale are discussed. We outline the major policy interventions and instruments that international organizations, Indian national and state governments, as well as individual firms can take to enable the introduction of remanufacturing in the textile industry, aligned with the 3 Pillars of Sustainability.

The thesis concludes by providing a set of "Roadmaps" for government-level and firm-level policies for textile remanufacturing under each Pillar, with the final one being a "Co-Optimized" Roadmap that considers the benefits and tradeoffs, of the policies identified, for all 3 Pillars, and which details a set of policies that, if implemented, has the possibility to set India on a more sustainable industrial pathway.