Environmental and social benchmarking for industrial processes in developing countries: a pilot project for the textile industry in India, Indonesia and Zimbabwe

Industry is increasingly being required to meet stringent social and environmental specifications in the international market. A number of industries in developing countries fear that unless they meet these requirements, they will lose their competitive edge in the international markets. The objective of this article is to present a newly developed methodology by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) which enables members of private industry in developing countries to assess their own performance in terms of environmental and social parameters, as well as to evaluate their performance against a set of global norms. This paper will present the said approach for assessing industrial processes through a case study from the textile industry, i.e. more specifically, woven fabric finishing (cotton), conducted by UNIDO in India, Indonesia and Zimbabwe. This article is based mainly on a report published by UNIDO in 1998.