http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=130926
Viyellatex to set up green building
Refayet Ullah Mirdha
The country’s garment industry will see its first “carbon-neutral” factory to be constructed on the outskirts of Dhaka by the middle of the next year.
The country’s leading apparel maker and exporter Viyellatex Group is going to set up the green building, first of its kind, on four acres in Joydevpur in an effort to attract more international buyers.
The new building will be more environment-friendly and energy-saving than the factories the company had set up earlier.
David Hasanat, the group’s chairman, said, “Construction of the building, a one-storey-one, will start by June this year and complete by June next year. The design, finalised already, allows at least 1,000 workers to work inside the building.”
The concept of green building mainly focuses on environmental issues and energy efficiency, according to experts. Also, carbon emission from such building is comparatively low.
Such a building is designed as per rules of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), a rating system devised by the United States Green Building Council.
LEED was launched in an effort to develop a ‘consensus-based, market-driven rating system to accelerate the development and implementation of green building practices.’
According to the Viyellatex Group’s top official, the garment factory to be housed in the ‘green building’ will manufacture knit and woven items.
A three-member team of the Department of Architecture at Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) has developed the design in collaboration with the German Technical Cooperation-GTZ, Hasanat said.
Zebun Nasreen Ahmed, a Buet professor and a member of the green building construction project, hoped that Viyellatex’s pilot project under the Promotion of Green Architecture in RMG Sector would inspire others, if this initiative works well.
“Definitely the green building is more environment-friendly and natural.”
reefat@thedailystar.net
