Sustainability and American Manufacturing

As we begin to see signs of economic recovery, America needs a transformation unlike any other in its history. We can’t miss the role that manufacturing should play in this transformation. To succeed at home as well as around the world, we need a comprehensive U.S. industrial strategy for competiveness that enables our future and takes advantage of the many emerging opportunities such as the transition to a green economy. One that focuses not just on commercializing new products, but also puts equal emphasis on industrial innovation in smart, safe and sustainable manufacturing.

Sustainability is important to making sure that we have and will continue to have the water, materials and resources to protect human health and our environment.

When large apparel brands and retailers moved from American shores to cheaper labor, they also escaped the cost of environmental regulations; there was a total disregard of the ideal of Sustainability. Is it no wonder that the hope of achieving the necessity of Sustainability is pronounced nonsense?

300,000,000 people in China are without potable drinking water. Textile manufacturing is the largest consumer of water. The devastation has already happened and GreenPeace International's appeal to the largest apparel brands to join them in their Detox program to reverse the damage has already garnered some support and a promise by some to be compliant by the year 2020.

Textiles made in America remain committed to production methods that do not contain toxic or harmful substances. They are still creating processes that reduce water uses in coloring fabrics. Sustainability is not forgotten. and we can still be hopeful that we can get further to achieving the ideal.

It’s time to re-industrialize America and reclaim world manufacturing and economic prosperity leadership with a U.S. industrial strategy for competiveness that deals head-on with the realities that we face as a nation today and will face in the future.