low carbon

 

 Action researcher, Gill Coleman creating a learning history with a MAS Intimates employee.

We are engaged in a learning history process to describe the development, construction and start up of the Thurulie low carbon factory (see video) in Sri Lanka which has been built by the Sri Lankan company MAS Intimates to supply lingerie to Marks and Spencer as part of the latter’s Plan A.

MAS Intimates in Sri Lanka has a longstanding reputation for innovative products and manufacturing and an equally longstanding concern for creating high employment standards. The company is a significant player in the Sri Lankan economy with considerable economic and political power. The wider Sri Lankan context presents both challenges and opportunities: wage and skill levels are relatively high and to compete in the global economy leading companies need to offer added value, often through contributing an ‘ethical’ dimension-social and environmental-to the supply chain.

The Thurulie factory has been designed to minimize energy through a set of design features that create a building appropriate to its tropical environment. The main green features of the building are:
- designed to sit lightly on the site, with minimum disturbance to ecology, on two floors to minimise footprint
-  ‘returned to nature’ at night
- set in a cool micro-climate to maximise thermal comfort and air quality, using native plants
- carbon neutral, using green power - hydro and solar PV
- low operating energy, using evaporative cooling, and natural lighting supplemented by LED task lights
- structure of re-usable steel framework and timber flooring to upper floors
- reflective roofing and partial green roof, to minimise heat absorption
- walls and roads built using cement stabilised soil with low embodied energy
- rainwater harvesting tanks to collect storm water
- anaerobic treatment system for waste water

As our theoretical orientation would suggest, the creative adoption of these technical features has only been possible because several stakeholder groups have collaborated to design and build this factory:
* Strategic thinkers within MAS looking for opportunities to add ethical value to the supply chain and strengthen relationship with a key customer;
* Marks and Spencer, whose need to create a novel strategic position in the UK high street aims to ensure that the goods it offers, and thus its entirely supply chain, reach high ethical and ecological standards. (See Plan A);
* A centre for energy studies at Moratuwa University in Colombo, whose members have been developing energy-saving practices in the tropics for many years, linked to an architect colleague with a passion for green design;
* A project management group able to act with energy and creativity to realize these strategic objectives in practice;
* A senior management team in MAS with a strong ‘can-do’ culture willing to give freedom and space to support innovation;
* A highly skilled and responsive building contractor able to respond flexibly and speedily to their client’s unusual requirements.

We have interviewed representatives of all these groups and at the time of writing are developing a draft learning history which we will take back to Sri Lanka for collaborative exploration in July.  The purpose of this learning history is to help those involved in a project reflect and learn, so that future projects may benefit from the experience.  Everyone involved has been extremely busy getting the factory to completion, and so it has been difficult to reflect on what has happened.  Further, each person involved has their own perspective, and it is difficult for individuals to have an overview and see how the different contributions have fitted together.  So our first objective in this visit is to help them in thinking about this, and noticing what has gone on.

We also have a second important purpose as part of the wider Lowcarbonworks research project.  Given the challenges of climate change and the importance of reducing carbon emissions, we wish to engage a wider audience in understanding interaction of technology and contextual factors in the achievement of a low carbon future. What has been achieved at Thurulie is important, and clearly demonstrates the systemic complementarity between several approaches to low carbon  with contextual factors including organizational strategy and inter-organizational relations in the supply chain, economic opportunity, national cultural conditions and the individual knowledge and agency of several important champions. We believe that the story of Thurulie offers important lessons for both business and policy audiences and contributes to our academic understanding of the adoption of low carbon technologies We hope the story will encourage business audiences to emulate it in their own original projects.�

 

Action researcher Gill Coleman, has recently returned from a visit to an eco-factory in Sri Lanka which will be supplying underwear to Marks and Spencer. Gill was impressed by the collective ingenuity and the speed of innovation achieved by the company, MAS. The idea is to create a learning history at the site to enable the company to learn from its success so that it can be replicated elsewhere.

Set up an rss feed using the orange button above if you want to be kept up to date with this project.Â