The SAVE project final report (2016)

In 2016 the SAVE project, short for Sustainable Action and Vision for a Better Environment, closed with a final report on three years of work at garment, footwear and accessory suppliers in Asia. This page summarises what was published about it. It is an independent summary, not the report itself.

What SAVE was

SAVE was a public-private partnership co-financed by DEG, the KfW group's private-sector development finance arm, and PUMA. It was officially launched by PUMA and the capacity-building NGO ASSIST in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 15 March 2013. The stated goal at launch was to help suppliers cut energy use, water use, waste and greenhouse gas emissions by 25% against a 2011 baseline. H&M joined PUMA in leading the project, and ASSIST, which is headquartered in the Philippines, led implementation.

Indonesia's place in the project

Indonesia was one of the four target countries, alongside Bangladesh, Cambodia and China, and it was where the project started: the 2013 launch ceremony in Jakarta was addressed by PUMA's branch manager for Indonesia, and a ten-day training and a series of on-site factory assessments were scheduled to follow in May and June 2013.

Reported results

Item	Reported figure
Participating suppliers	35 apparel and footwear suppliers in four countries
CO2 reduction	40,000 tonnes a year
Cost savings	US$4 million a year across the participating factories
Chinese suppliers (18 of the 35)	Energy savings of 33,208,796 kWh a year and water savings of 119,555 m³, as reported in PUMA's case on IPE's green supply chain platform

Water and waste savings were also achieved, according to trade press coverage of the results, which gave no project-wide figures for them.

What the factories changed

The measures reported for the Chinese suppliers were mostly simple and quick to pay back: servo motors on sewing machines, LED lamps in place of T8 and T5 fluorescent tubes, and transparent roof panels to use daylight. Larger factories also added renewable energy such as solar power systems and biomass boilers. Typical assessment areas are described on what a resource-efficiency assessment looks at.

Outputs and later use

The project produced best-practice guidelines and an e-learning toolkit, which were to be open-sourced for the wider apparel industry. The final report has since been cited as a best-practice case study in The Fashion Pact's climate accelerator support package for suppliers (December 2020). For background on the partnership model, see why a development bank partners with a brand, and for the programme overview, the SAVE home page.