Fashion’s Push to Switch Coal for Biomass a ‘Greenwashing Tactic,’ Advocacy Groups Say

Huge manufacturers’ efforts to get coal out of their provide chains by encouraging a shift to biomass like wooden pellets and rice husks is a “greenwashing tactic” that dangers delaying a transition to cleaner power sources and growing deforestation, a gaggle of 16 Indonesia-based environmental advocacy organisations have mentioned.

In an open letter to the trade printed earlier this week, organisations together with Rainforest Motion Community and Mates of the Earth Indonesia warned that the style trade’s present decarbonisation methods have didn’t take into consideration the detrimental impression of biomass on communities in Indonesia and different elements of Southeast Asia.

Present plans by the Indonesian authorities to scale up its use of the feedstock to fulfill renewable power targets have already put some two million hectares of pure forest in danger within the nation, in response to evaluation by Pattern Asia, one other signatory of the letter.

The style trade is a crucial a part of the Indonesian economic system and extremely influential on the nation and the potential for additional growth of biomass to gas the sector “is alarming,” the letter mentioned.

Firms together with H&M Group, Adidas, Inditex and Puma are taking a look at biomass as a low-carbon various that would function a close to drop-in answer to coal utilized in boilers in the course of the energy-intensive technique of dyeing and ending materials.

Signatories to the UN Vogue Constitution have dedicated to cease onboarding new suppliers that use coal-fired boilers by this yr and to section them out of their provide chain utterly by 2030. Inditex mentioned it solely suggests using biomass when there’s low availability of different renewable alternate options and that it specifies any feedstock ought to be sourced responsibly. H&M, Adidas and Puma didn’t present remark.

However biomass is a controversial various, not solely due to its hyperlinks to deforestation, but in addition as a result of related impacts on native communities and extra air pollution attributable to burning feedstocks like wooden pellets.

“Vogue manufacturers which declare to be severe about sustainable power ought to actually concentrate on phasing out coal in addition to forgoing biomass burning,” the letter mentioned.

Study extra:

Can Fashion Quit the World’s Dirtiest Fossil Fuel?

Firms like H&M and Puma are pushing to get coal out of their provide chains by the top of the last decade.