December 2008 marked a milestone of the German-Chinese high quality leather manufacturer ISA Tan Tec when it broke ground to build a new factory in Vietnam, an ecologically and environmentally friendly factory.
This factory became operative less than one year later in October 2009. ISA has planned and implemented new processes and systems which enable this factory to be still up-to-date in the year 2030 and follows and focuses on environmental and social sustainability best practices.
Mr Dirk Leyendecker, General Director of Saigon Tan Tec, revealed: “Building an ecological and environmental friendly facility in Vietnam was our goal in order to produce and supply high quality leather to our customers and reduce the impact on the environment to a minimum at the same time. We have achieved both goals.”
This facility now employs about 300 Vietnamese people and has a capacity of two million square metres of high-quality leather per 2.2 Mio square metres per year.
Saigon Tan Tec is located in Viet Huong 2 Industrial Park, Binh Duong Province and became ISA’s second factory in Asia (China). During the operation in China, ISA has implemented many new systems and optimized processes in order to reduce the impact on the environment by reducing the water, gas, chemicals, diesel and electric power consumption drastically and reuses water in several processes. All these experiences, together with an intelligent design of the factory supported STL to reach their goals.
ISA is now planning to build a new factory in Heshan (China) which will follow the same concept as STL and will become productive in January 2012. Then ISA Tan Tec will have two ultra-modern production facilities which will produce high-quality leather with the lowest impact on the environment.
ISA Tan Tec has invented and implemented the LITE concept in China’s first operation and optimized for the two new production facilities in Vietnam and China.
LITE stands for Low Impact to the Environment and represents the whole approach to reduce the consumption of water, electric power, chemicals, diesel and gas and reusing water in production processes. Not only is some leather becoming “environmental friendly”, but the whole production process is improved.
How do they do it? ISA has combined many ideas in their new factory to minimize the impact on the environment.
STL is using a computer controlled solar system which heats production water in a natural way so no boiler is needed.
The main wastewater treatment system is supported by an automatically controlled wetland system which treats the wastewater in a natural way, using any additional energy and chemicals, just using the power of plants and bacteria to clean wastewater before discharging it to the Industrial Park.
A bamboo wall instead of a brick wall was included which enables fresh and cool wind blowing from the outside to the inside and out through the roof in order to cool down the inside temperature in a natural way and providing a healthy and pleasant atmosphere for the operators. During the day, no artificial light is needed as the skylights provide plenty of natural sunlight inside the factory.
Besides this, STL has invested in modern and up-to-date machinery and equipment and is continuously training their employees to reduce consumption.
By doing this, STL is able to save up to 70 percent of water consumption in several areas, mainly by reusing water, and saving energy by up to 50 percent.
Besides several awards which ISA has received for their operation in China, Saigon Tan Tec has received additional awards. Among others Saigon Tan Tec has received the 2nd place of the Energy Efficiency Award of DENA in Germany which is supported by the German Ministry of Technology for their great effort to increase their efficiency by reducing the water, electric power, gas and diesel consumption and reusing water in several processes. STL has received awards from local government such as Greenbook as well.
Saigon Tan Tec will continue to improve their system and processes in order to reduce the impact on the environment to a minimum and we are all looking forward to see these new projects, which are already planned and under testing, in action.
Duy Khang
10/20/2021 10:06:39 AM
Vietnamese
