Search Results for: japan

Textile industry innovators are seeking to create and improve naturally coloured cotton, that can reduce or even remove the need for manufacturers to add dyes that can be expensive and generate significant levels of pollution.

Natural coloured cotton is not new, with Liv Severino, head of Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa), the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, a state-owned research corporation affiliated with Brazil’s ministry of agriculture, livestock and food supply, noting evidence that human clothes were made from such fibres in the Andes 5,000 years ago.…

Growing Asian dairy markets are increasingly regulating the health claims that could be made on packs of food, a trend that is impacting international dairy exporters from Europe as much as local dairy producers.

A key example is Taiwan, that will in 2022 forbid the word ‘healthy’ on food items except foods that have received special health food permits.…

BOTH the Australian as well as the New Zealand cosmetics and personal care market have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, trends towards increasing purchases of health conscious and natural products have continued, with local brands gaining momentum, indicating how the Australasian personal care product market will develop once the coronavirus has lost its bite.…

THE INTERNATIONAL Federation of Accountants (IFAC) has released detailed proposals to create a new International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), working alongside the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) but operationally independent under the IFRS Foundation. The goal would be integrating standards created by a wide range of existing sustainability initiatives, such as from the CDP (https://www.cdp.net/en…

Innovation is a key to success in the knitwear sector, but when a manufacturing hub combines centuries-old traditions of knitted product production with new technology and ideas, that is a winning combination. This is the strength of Japan’s Wakayama knitwear manufacturing centre, located south of Osaka, on the western coast of the Kii Peninsula.…

Scientists in Japan have succeeded in developing an artificial spider silk that could have major implications for the apparel industry. The research team at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (CSRS), developed the spider silk from photosynthetic bacteria, paving the way for a new era of photosynthetic bio-factories delivering stable output.…

Few countries could claim to have weathered Covid-19 well but Singapore, micro-managed and highly-educated, is high on the shortlist. Even so, Covid-19 has had a detrimental effect on the southeast Asian city state’s paints and coatings sector and its impacts continue to linger.…

The China National Coatings Industry Association (NCIA) on July 31 informed members that it has been told by the ministry of ecology and environment to investigate the production, treatment and disposal of hazardous waste in the coating industry and compile a management guide based on the investigation’s findings.…

Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal is one of the largest ever embezzlement and money laundering cases, with Malaysian courts considering how at least USD4.5 billion was stolen and then spent or laundered from Malaysian sovereign wealth fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB). Former Prime Minister Najib Razak has now been convicted of charges associated with the scandal.…

Japan is set to surpass its renewable energy targets well before its 2030 deadline, aided by a booming biomass sector benefiting from favourable government programmes and private sector investment.

Of Japan’s total 1.065 trillion kWH generated electric power expected in 2030, the Japanese government pledged that 22–24% of it would be sourced from renewable energy, of which 3.7% to 4.6% would come from biomass.…