Conserving Resources – Securing Savings-Potential
The Comparison, Measuring & Labelling
of Energy-efficient Textile Machinery
Everyone is talking about sustainability. Energy efficiency, raw material efficiency, material efficiency are
just some of the sub-headings of the often loosely-used watch-word “sustainability” – but these are concrete
economic and ecological challenges for the international textile industry. Sustainable development more and
more becomes a decisive competitive factor. Textile manufacturers all over the world are confronted with big
challenges: State and society demand for resource-saving and environmentally-friendly factories; our ecological
responsibility requires the efficient use of energy and raw materials.
Energy-efficient textile machinery offer great saving potentials – but the potential benefit is also in the hands
of the textile manufacturers. How to measure energy efficiency? What are the important parameters and how
can both machinery and textile manufacturers influence them? What does the famous “ecological footprint”
mean? How transparent and comparable are the values quoted? These and other questions will be answered
in this paper prepared by VDMA Textile Machinery and its member companies.
VDMA (Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau, Mechanical Engineering Industry Association)
represents over 3,100 mostly medium-sized companies in the capital goods industry, making it the largest
industry association in Europe. About 130 of the most important manufacturers of textile machinery and
accessories from all sectors of the trade are affiliated within the VDMA Textile Machinery Association. The
largest parts of the companies are medium-sized firms and stand for approximately 90 per cent of the entire
sector volume. In 2015, the branch produced textile machinery worth about 3.1 billion euros.
Responsibility and transparency as
a basis for credibility
Sustainable development more and
more becomes a decisive competitive
factor. Textile manufacturers all over the
world are confronted with big
challenges: State and society demand
for resource-saving & environmentally-
friendly factories; our ecological
responsibility requires the efficient use
of energy and raw materials.
The textile machinery manufacturers
affiliated with VDMA are recognized
worldwide for their leadership as
regards innovations and quality. They
constantly optimize machines,
components and technology also in
view of sustainability and thus offer the
key for energy- and resource-efficient
manufacturing processes. The
BLUecoMPETENCE initiative of
VDMA provides guidance to identify
those machinery manufacturers, who
respond with their products and their
own production to economy, ecology
and social responsibility in asustainable and transparent manner.
BLUecoMPETENCE defines the
criteria and is based on the personal
responsibility of the participating
companies. Thus the initiative follows
a general principle which has worked
effectively in Europe for decades with
regard to the CE label of products and
which allows for transparency. Every
machinery manufacturer documents
the respect of the machinery directive
by issuing the EC declaration of
conformity and the application of the
CE label and takes the concrete
responsibility for his product. The same
is decisive for the subject resource
efficiency. VDMA supports its member
companies to meet this responsibility.
The VDMA member companies have
gained their credibility among the
textile manufacturers around the entire
world by a confident customer
relationship - partly for decades - ,
problem-solving competence, reliable
performance and quality. This is the
foundation on which production
NCM-APRIL 2020
47processes of higher energy and
resource-efficiency can be developed
jointly.
Pioneers in energy efficiency
With its market-leading technologies
and machinery, many German textile
machinery manufacturers are already
successfully offering environmentally
friendly energy and resource-efficient
solutions around the entire world.
According to a study by Roland Berger
and the VDMA, energy efficiency
increases of approximately 15% were
achieved already in the last ten years
through the use of German textile
technology – far more than was
provided by the corresponding use of
technology in most other manufacturing
industries. Manufacturers of machinery
and equipment for the textile industry
are therefore among the most
innovative sectors of the German plant
and machinery construction industry –
even without a mutually agreed
machine label to identify energy
efficiency.