It is a well-known fact that making of textiles consume lot of chemicals. These hazardous chemical effects environment, health of consumers and workers health throughout textile supply chain.

The top global concerns are

• Clean water
• Clean soil
• Clean air
• Healthy & Safe consumer products

Chemical management is the process that considers the environment, the health of consumer and the working condition/health of people working in fashion industry and reduce carbon footprint. It leads to the change towards safe product and healthy environment.

Chemical management is instrumental in delivering environmental performance improvements to all parts of the supply chain—brands, chemical suppliers, manufacturers and other intermediaries.

The objective of chemical management can be achieved with integrated system of chemicals and resource management. This includes making of chemical inventory list and process optimization.

Chemical inventory list screens the chemicals as per defined Restrictive substance List (RSL), Manufacturing restrictive substance list (MRSL) and legislations. Once you screen all possible chemicals consumed in process of textile supply chain, the next step is to choose alternatives means shifting from hazardous chemistries to safer chemistries.

The suppliers cannot change the things in one go, as in some case alternatives are not available. The best option is to priorities the hazards based on

• Quantity or percentage of chemical used
• Percentage of workers exposed
• Degree of harm (high to low)

So, the chemical management process defined the way

• Making chemical inventory list
• Hazard assessment and prioritization
• Phase out action
• Research action
• Storage and handling of chemicals
• Process optimization
• Treatment and disposal of waste
• Validating results