“This is a pioneering project, it’s an experiment,” says John Cheh, CEO of Esquel Group. “Admittedly it has its constraints – we can’t do dyeing here, for example, because of environmental restrictions – and not all factories can look like this. But it embodies many concepts, and these values can be implemented in many of our other factories.

“The best part of it is that our employees have already shown they love [it]. We have reduced working hours and our turnover rate is less than one per cent.”

Esquel is not the only Hong Kong-based manufacturer to be pushing their sustainability agenda beyond corporate social responsibility, by focusing on areas such as overproduction and toxic waste.

Garment manufacturing in Hong Kong began early in the 20th century. At its peak in the 1950s, the city was one of Asia’s biggest textile exporters. Although many of the larger companies moved their production out of the city, to China or to other, lower-cost countries, they still play a vital role in the textile and apparel industries.

These companies have begun innovating to tackle social and environmental issues associated with manufacturing.

TAL Apparel, which has a Leed (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified factory in Vietnam and developed a code of conduct as far back as the early 2000s, is one such company. It is part of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and the Sustainable Fashion Business Consortium, and is a signatory to the United Nations Fashion Industry Charter for Climate Action.

In 2016 the company took a step towards this by launching a partnership with non-governmental organisation Redress. TAL Apparel offers support to participants in the charity’s annual Redress Design Award sustainable-design contest by offering visits to its factories, where they get hands-on experience of how sustainable practices can be applied along the supply chain.

“From 2006 or even before, our sustainability efforts have been more product- and operational/systems oriented. Now, it’s about tackling the textile waste in our processes, whether it’s the raw materials that fall off machines, or excess yarn that’s spun,” says Novetex chairman Ronna Chao.

While many of these initiatives are admirable, their founders acknowledge they come with their own sets of challenges. To make the most impact, they need to be scalable – which isn’t always possible. Chao, for example, says big cities are the main source of textile waste. The Billie system works best when it is close to the source of waste textiles, but would be more expensive to run in a major city.

“It’s a continuous journey. While Integral is amazing, we really have to focus on the bigger issues, which are to reduce energy and water consumption overall. We have made gains but they can’t continue forever, so it’s vital that we continue researching systems such as [enviromentally friendly] washing, which uses 90 per cent less water than is usually required for dyeing. This is more sustainable than planting a few more trees,” says Esquel’s Cheh.

“A lot of advocacy needs to be done beyond the top level,” says Chao. “It makes sense for smaller communities or networks to be formed so we can all work together. We also need to be mindful at every level of production, from purchasing raw materials, to consumption. Even if I put in 100 lines of the Billie system, it can’t make an impact if people are still massively overproducing.”