'Circularity will be key for BD’s next growth transition'

Circularity will be the key for the next growth transition of Bangladesh's economy, speakers said in the 1st Bangladesh Circular Economy Summit at a city hotel in Dhaka today. 

The Bangladesh Circular Economy Summit was organised by Bangladesh Apparel Exchange in collaboration with Laudes Foundation and in partnership with P4G. The summit was powered by GIZ, Embassy of Kingdom of the Netherlands in Bangladesh and H&M Group. 

Md Atiqul Islam, mayor, Dhaka North City Corporation; Saber Hossain Chowdhury, MP, special envoy to Prime Minister of Bangladesh (Environment & Climate Change) and chairman, Parliamentary Standing Committee on MOEFCC;  Anne Van Leeuwen, ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Bangladesh; Edimon Ginting, country director, Bangladesh Resident Mission, Asian Development Bank; Dr. Bernd Spanier, Deputy Head of Delegation, Delegation of the European Union to Bangladesh;
Leyla Ertur, head of Sustainability, H&M Group; and Mostafiz Uddin, founder and CEO of Bangladesh Apparel Exchange were speakers in the opening plenary of the summit. 

Md Atiqul Islam, Mayor, Dhaka North City Corporation, said ''3R – reduce, recycle and reuse are the keys for sustainability. Moreover, extended product or producer responsibility as stipulated by the EU is going to be mandatory for apparel producers in Bangladesh. So, the importance of promoting circular fashion in the country cannot be overstated.''

Saber Hossain Chowdhury, MP, special envoy to Prime Minister of Bangladesh (Environment & Climate Change) and chairman,Parliamentary Standing Committee on Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MOEFCC) said, ''In traditional economy which is linear, we produce, consume and throw away is not sustainable. So, we need to make the shift from linear to circular economy to keep resources in use for as long as possible, and extract and harvest the maximum value from the products whilst in use. For that the business cases for circularity has to be win-win for manufacturers and buyers." 

Anne Van Leeuwen, ambassador of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Bangladesh said, "Netherlands and Bangladesh have many things in common. One of them is both the countries are big deltas, thus vulnerable to climate change. Bangladesh has made tremendous progress in economy and social development indexes. The country has the opportunity to be a leader in circular economy too.''

Leyla Ertur, head of Sustainability, H&M Group said ''The fashion industry needs to accelerate its transformation towards circularity as the way forward to solve the biggest challenges we face, not only companies but societies in general, such as climate change and biodiversity loss. We need to join forces to build a circular fashion ecosystem and Bangladesh is unique as the country with the world's largest share of pre-consumer textile waste readily available for recycling. Bangladesh has a great potential to attract investments from local and foreign investors to scale up the production of high-value recycled fibers from pre-consumer waste. However, we are well-aware the industry needs advancing policy to regulate the waste handling sector in order to move forward in this area.''

Founder and CEO of Bangladesh Apparel Exchange Mostafiz Uddin said "Bangladesh Circular Economy Summit aims to find out the opportunities for the shift from the linear to circular business model and foster collaborations among the stakeholders to promote circular economy in the country." 

The summit was comprised of 4 plenary sessions, 3 keynotes, 3 presentations, a roundtable and a fireside chat.