Case study

The demonstration projects in selected companies constituted the core of the Lao
Cleaner Production Programme (LCPP). Sector selection for demonstration is done in
the beginning of the year and for year 2006 Food processing sector was selected and
5 representative units were identified. As a special case one natural cotton dyeing unit
was also selected in addition to 4 food processing sector units. CP assessments were
carried out in all the units and identified techno-economical viable options were
implemented between April 2006 and December 2006. To prove the financial and
environmental benefits of cleaner production in practice the CP team from
participating units joined forces with project staff and national CP experts. In turn,
those joint task forces were coached by Chief Technical Advisor and received
technical back up from international experts in the sectors. Dissemination of the
results was from the very outset of the project one of the main concerns and activities.

In order to improve the participating unit's economic, environmental and working condition, Export Garment Factory decided to join the CP project. A Cleaner Production ‘task force’ with eight members, was established under the supervision of Manager responsible for production. Since the production process comprises many different unit operations it was decided to focus the CP assessment on wet operation section and utilities using maximum resources and generating significant pollution load. With the assistance of national and international experts, the team carried out a thorough analysis of the unit operation and process employed, with a view to identifying how the waste generation could be reduced or eliminated by optimizing the production process. A wide range of CP measures were selected for implementation and so far 12 measures, mostly low or no cost measures have been implemented with total investments of approximately  300.Million Kip (30,000 US$). These measures have resulted in direct cost savings of 500 Million Kip (50,000 US$) per annum. The main environmental improvements have been 33% reduction in waste water volume & pollution load. However, in absence of availability of reliable baseline data actual reduction in organic pollution load could not be quantified. In addition to significant reduction in gaseous emissions, major achievement has been complete elimination of Green House Gas (GHG) due to change of boiler from fossil fuel oil fired to carbon neutral waste wood fired boiler.

Benchmarking is used to compare  the performance of individual plants with the energy efficient plant(s) on a sector-by-sector basis.

This study is aimed to provide a reliable and meaningful set of National level indicators of energy efficiency and GHG (CO2) emissions in the selected industrial sector.