In 2010, major Swedish textile and leather brands and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) launched the Sweden Textile Water Initiative. The idea behind the initiative was to gain a better understanding of the water challenges faced by the industry and finding the right mechanisms to address them.
During an initial two-year period the collective kick-started a collaborative learning process as a Swedish Water House cluster group. Through dedicated dialogue between member companies, SIWI and experts on industrial water use, the first guidelines for sustainable water and waste water management in supply chains were created. From 2014 to 2018 the program has been working with 277 suppliers in Bangladesh, China, Ethiopia, India and Turkey. We have been providing training and implementation of methods for sustainable water use, technical support and data monitoring.
The program has demonstrated its value through many positive results. In combination with stricter policies and brand standards, STWI provides an excellent platform for factories to learn and perform good sustainability results and practices.
From 2018 the network will progress to a Global Network increasing knowledge sharing in the textile industry and working with sustainable resource managementin the supply chain.
